Looking for comments & suggestions from large commercial offset printers. Sorry for the length, attempting to explain our situation.
We accept both sources files and PDFs for print output. Our current workflow does not allow for automation in the form of customer uploads into our RIP system. We have our preferred PDF export options and instructions on our web page for customers to use, and remain hopeful that our salespeople are encouraging customers to use them. That said, frequently we are provided with BOTH source files AND a PDF; however, we are not told by the customer if the PDF is actually “print-ready.”
Management would like us to assume that in this scenario, as long as preflight passes the PDF for print resolution, it should be used for print NOT the source files. The other point I would add is that when changes are requested from the client, they’re going to tell us to use the source files they provided (which could produce different color results if they did not use our PDF export settings). I'm wondering how other printers like us are handling these situations.
We accept both sources files and PDFs for print output. Our current workflow does not allow for automation in the form of customer uploads into our RIP system. We have our preferred PDF export options and instructions on our web page for customers to use, and remain hopeful that our salespeople are encouraging customers to use them. That said, frequently we are provided with BOTH source files AND a PDF; however, we are not told by the customer if the PDF is actually “print-ready.”
Management would like us to assume that in this scenario, as long as preflight passes the PDF for print resolution, it should be used for print NOT the source files. The other point I would add is that when changes are requested from the client, they’re going to tell us to use the source files they provided (which could produce different color results if they did not use our PDF export settings). I'm wondering how other printers like us are handling these situations.