Pitstop or Flightcheck?

[PrePress Gal]

We are a small print shop working with Macs, QuarkXPress & CS4 applications. We get some native files along with PDFs from customers for jobs, but mostly we get PDFs. Can you tell me the pros and cons to each of these software packages as a preflighting tool?

[irreality]

Well if you are only working with PDF's Pitstop is the way to go in my books. Pitstop will only preflight PDF's .However, if you are working with native files as well, you may need to get both ! As Flightcheck will check native files and PDF's however, PITSTOP gives you a bunch of tools required for Editing PDF's and you said that you primarily work with PDF's you will definetly need this.

[PrePress Gal]

That was kind of my immediate summary. Just thought I would get some input from Flightcheck users.

Thanks

[Colorblind]

InDesign CS4 now have on-the-fly preflight tool. You define your own preflight profiles and as soon an InDesign document is opened, it will flag (but won't fix) any situation defined in your current preflight profile.

[mattbeals]

In case anyone doesn't know, I work with Callas, Enfocus and Markzware selling and training for their products.

FlightCheck is perfect for preflighting native files from all the Creative Suite and Quark amongst other native applications (including Office) and PDF's. The built in preflight in InDesign is fine, but it only preflights InDesign documents. For preflighting PDF's FlightCheck will do a very good job of reporting but it will not correct files.

Enfocus PitStop Pro is a PDF editing and preflighting plug-in for Acrobat that is very capable and is the only interactive PDF editor where you can actually manipulate individual objects. Create new rectangles, move a line of type, create elipses, etc. There is also PitStop Extreme that is a stand alone editor.

Callas has their pdfToolbox which is a plug-in and a stand alone PDF editor/preflighting tool. Callas is the OEM of the Acrobat preflight module.

Part of the question needs to be do you want to preflight everything once it's a PDF or do you want to preflight native files before you go to the trouble of making a PDF?

There are good reasons to preflight a native file first, I personally prefer it. Although when automating workflows it isn't always practical (Unless you get into FlightCheck Online). So generally people use Callas pdfToolbox Server, CLI or the SDK or PitStop Server.

All of the core preflighting you need to do is built into Acrobat Pro. Much of the edits you would find yourself doing can be done with Acrobat and Illustrator/PhotoShop. PitStop would be the tool to use for heavy editing, no two ways about it. pdfToolbox is a bridge between the two, Acrobat and PitStop with numerous added features.

[stargate]

Pitstop Extreme is only $3500, Pitstop Pro is $700 and FlightCheck Pro is $500. Why don't you get them all? You will have a choice of all the tools available on one computer only.

[PrePress Gal]

:-) We have an old version of Acrobat Pro so that is why I was leaning to upgrade for $300. I just have to cover all the bases and answer the boss's questions.

[mattbeals]

Getting a current version of Acrobat Pro is the first start. Once you've got that you can do all e preflighting you need. There are a number of corrections that can be made with just the basic preflight module and with the tools in Acrobat. From there download pdfToolbox plug-in, PitStop and FlightCheck and see what you like. I don't think that PitStop Extreme is going to be what you are looking for simply because of it's price.You can get the upgrade, PitStop Pro, Callas pdfToolbox and FlightCheck for the price of the one PitStop Extreme.

[PrePress Gal]

Thanks guys for the clear advice. I will pass this on to my boss and let him decide. I am recommending we just upgrade Pitstop Pro and look into something else if we need it down the road. Personally, I do not need anything else. I think all the preflighting capabilities between InDesign, Acrobat Pro and Pitstop Pro will be all I need.

[mattbeals]

Check out pdfToolbox 4.3 plug-in and the bundled stand alone PDF editor. It's well worth your time to investigate. You can get all the benefits of your preflighting needs without the burden of Acrobat Pro (which honestly is kind of pig slow because it's so darned big...). There is a competitive upgrade for Enfocus users to boot. Give it a shot to make sure you cover all your bases before spending any money.