Preflighting decision: Acrobat pro vs FlightCheck (and other external programs)

[Johnsonaaro]

I work for a gravure packaging printing company and I brought up the proposition of creating a custom preflight in Adobe Acrobat Pro to automate and increase the accuracy of our preflighting process. Have any of you created, or use, custom preflights to preflight in Acrobat? I am not sure if there are custom checks which can determine if line weight in text is thick enough, or if you can set trapping requirements. I know there is a variety of standalone preflight software, any recommended options?

Thanks for any responses and help!

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Acrobat Pro licenses a custom subset of the Callas pdfToolbox preflight/fix engine, so it has basic capabilities by default and includes various preflight, single check and single fix profiles. Explore the options, make a file that “breaks the rules” and see if it passes or fails preflight. If it fails, look into the preflight settings.

Over and above Acrobat Pro, most people look into third party preflight software, either Enfocus PitStop Pro or Server or Callas pdfToolbox.


Stephen Marsh

 

[WiseGuy]

One thing to remember... applications like Pitstop Pro not only provide a more complete preflight process, they also provide global corrections and editing that you don't get with Acrobat. Even functions such as automatically adding bleed to PDFs without bleeds is a snap.

Just something to think about.

Michael Reiher
Connect Product Manager
Enfocus

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Acrobat Pro licenses a custom subset of the Callas pdfToolbox preflight/fix engine, so it has basic capabilities by default and includes various preflight, single check and single fix profiles. Explore the options, make a file that “breaks the rules” and see if it passes or fails preflight. If it fails, look into the preflight settings. …

As of the current version of Acrobat, Acrobat DC Pro, the profiles, single checks, and single fixups as well as the component underlying rules of Acrobat Preflight fully match those of Callas pdfToolbox. There are other features of Callas pdfToolbox that are not part of Acrobat, but the preflight is identical. Profiles, checks, and fixups created in one can be used without modification in the other.

- Dov

 

[Stephen Marsh]

As of the current version of Acrobat, Acrobat DC Pro, the profiles, single checks, and single fixups as well as the component underlying rules of Acrobat Preflight fully match those of Callas pdfToolbox. There are other features of Callas pdfToolbox that are not part of Acrobat, but the preflight is identical. Profiles, checks, and fixups created in one can be used without modification in the other.

- Dov

Hi Dov, I did not know that had changed in the latest DC version, thanks for the info!


Stephen Marsh