Pitstop or Flightcheck?

[orsons]

We get mainly Coreldraw files and we are facing lot of problems. Kindly give me some ideas. We get problems when there is lens effect.

[SnappySteve]

We get mainly Coreldraw files and we are facing lot of problems. Kindly give me some ideas. We get problems when there is lens effect.

Sledge hammer?

We usually do OK with Corel but we set up our own profile to export PDF files that "play" nicely in our workflow. Set your profile up to prevent or detect your most common problems and don't use any others to PDF from Corel. There are occasionally files that still rain on the parade - that's when the hammer comes in handy!

[rrh63]

Effects, transparency and drop shadows, (to name a few) all posed problems for various workflows. Until we upgraded our workflow to the latest version that was a true pdf workflow we had the same issues as most do. Postscripting didn't handle those problems well. Now we export to a pdf ALL files from ALL page layout programs regardless of the links and the rip handles those issues. So far so good with the upgrade, no problems to speak of. Sorry this didn't have an exact resolve to your question.... hope this helps in some way. Randy.

[David Ingram]

In FlightCheck there is an option to detect halftone screens and transfer functions. Those should catch any screening info applied by PhotoShop, Illustrator, etc.

It has it NOW, for a long time it didnt... still don't trust it. it was marketd as the be all end all tool, maybe it's better now, I refuse to use it.

[pe3046]

I am a little confused as to how to use Flightcheck to pre-flight native CS4 files, last time I checked they are not supported (more than 6 months after CS4 released, quark 8 have to save as project...). Everytime I try to flightcheck a cs4 native file it crashes. To use it, I have to save the file as a .inx cs3 file, open the document in cs3 and fix any type that shifted, save as/close document then open it in flightcheck. Half the time that crashes too. I prefer to use tools that work, as a long time pitstop and flightcheck user the built-in preflighting abilities of acrobat and indesign get better with each release. Flightcheck seems to lose functionality with each paid upgrade, they seem to be more focused on tweeting and blogging then providing their user base with an application that works.

[telenow2002]

Guys, I think your being pretty harsh on the guys that have provided the capabilities that no other company has been able to provide.... It takes time for them to get the information out of the companies regarding their new file formats and even then that may not be as accurate as it could be. Even with the information they need to write the capability into their application framework.

Anyway have you contacted them and asked about your problems and maybe a roadmap of whats coming?

Also something that Matt didn't mention is the rich scripting ability of Flightcheck, combined with the scripting of the applications can provide you with an automated workflow.

Tunicca Pre-Media Blog

[davidmwe]

Yes, pe3046, can understand your frustration with the CS4 support in FlightCheck. It has taken too long this time, for various reasons. We are very busy, more than full-time, with a staff of developers working on things. Expect a version of FlightCheck Professional which supports Adobe CS4 file types soon; planning shows a release within the next 60 days.

Now I have to get back to Markzware (Markzware) on Twitter

In all seriousness, indeed, please always feel free to contact us; you may be even able to help us beta test!

[pcmodem]

It has it NOW, for a long time it didnt... still don't trust it. it was marketd as the be all end all tool, maybe it's better now, I refuse to use it.

So David,
Since you don't use Flight Check. What do you use to Preflight your native documents?

[pcmodem]

Guys, I think your being pretty harsh on the guys that have provided the capabilities that no other company has been able to provide....

Extensis use to have a Preflighting software called Preflight Pro, but I believe it died back in the Mac OS 9 days.

[telenow2002]

Good question pcmodem, since the only other native preflight is Freeflight..... and not being a commercial product they wouldn't have the engineering time to put to it.