What do you guys use for preflight/workflow?

[cbucheli]

Hey guys, what do you guys use to preflight? I just started in a new shop and there is no much preflighting going on, we are having problems dropping images from the plates, fonts.. etc. Currently we have meta and signa 4.5, pdfs are going straight into signa.
In the previous shop I worked I had, Meta, Signa and Cockpit, these worked very good, and I did not have so many issues, but to integrate cockpit is quite a bit of expense. We do have PitStop server, an older version but we don't utilize it very much.

[mattbeals]

It would be really easy to drop in PiStop Server or pdfToolbox Server to set up preflighting. Depending on how old your copy of PitStop Server is it can be a modest upgrade price. Feel free to call me if you want to discuss which tool fits your needs best. As far as the overall workflow goes there is a lot that can be done in incrimental steps to get you where you want to be.

[davidmwe]

I would also highly recommend FlightCheck v6.75. With full CS5 support and lower (Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop and Acrobat PDF), plus many other common DTP file formats, such as QuarkXPress and image formats, it can be your "go to" app for preflighting every print-job that comes in.

If your PDF needs surgery, then go into Acrobat and PitStop, etc. But the key here is it's ability to check most all layout and processed file types with one, easy to use, stand-alone tool. Check out what this prepress operator had to say in a recent interview about FlightCheck in their workflow:

Prepress systems administrator: "The best thing about FlightCheck today-- it can be customized for your situation."

Take care,
David Dilling
Markzware (The software developer of FlightCheck)

[Sev]

For preflighting PDF's we use PitStop and Acrobat's Separation Preview. Also, InDesign's Live Preflight is great (CS4,5). Older versions of InDesign has a basic preflight function. For Quark and other files we will sometimes use FlightCheck. The thing about FlightCheck is that it can be customized for just about any situation.
Hope this helps some.

-Sev