Pitstop 10 is driving me nuts

[Jackie]

OK here is my rant, and maybe I'm not giving the program a chance but I upgraded from Pitstop 8 to 10 and it seems to take way more clicks to achieve the same end in version 10. There seems to be less options rather than more when selecting and changing a colour for instance. Maybe I will grow to love it but sometimes I think software developers change stuff for the sake of changing stuff so it's a "new" feature. There is no continuity between versions . . .so far not impressed.

Anyone else frustrated or am I just having a bad day?

Thanks
Jackie

 

[mattbeals]

Bad day. But I prefer PitStop 7 myself...

 

[Jackie]

I know, it's a bad day when I'm ranting about such a minor thing but aren't these kind of programs supposed to improve productivity?

The fact that you prefer Pitstop 7 yourself kind of tells me that I'm not completely off base.

Oh well, it's monday . . .

J

 

[mattbeals]

It's a lot better than 9 was. I'm coming around to it. But I spend about 7 hours a day in PitStop 7 so I'm much more "at home" with it. 10 is good, especially now that the design layout panel works.

 

[ajr]

Just upgraded, hate it with a passion. Easier to go on an old mac and get the same thing done on an older version.

A

 

[Mark]

I hate 9 versus the older version 6.5 i have, so i will avoid 10 if it's still bad.

 

[mattbeals]

Don't avoid it. It really is a big functional improvement. I get used to things being the way they are and it drives me nuts when they change. But I'm coming around to it. I think the best thing about v10 besides some of the actions and preflight parameters is the design layout panel. I hated it at first but now that I am used to working with it I have found it to be hugely beneficial. But, I still like v7 more. Would I switch back? No because I'd loose so much functionality. Do I like the simple interface more? Yes. But like most other people here I get paid to put pages through the most efficient way possible. So v10 is where it's at.

 

[zoran]

I decided to skip 10, I am stuck at 9 at the moment and still hate it.
They have shown complete disregard for user interface and improvement from version to version are not that big to justify expense (except for big leaps in UI in wrong direction).
Honestly, for most of what I do, 7 is still good enough.
C'mon Enfocus/Artwork, we need more functionality in new versions to justify the cost of upgrading every year and give us finally proper gradient/transparency editing that you have in Neo to make Pitstop complete PDF editing tool.

 

[WiseGuy]

Hello... I just wanted to pop in and invite anyone who would love to share their needs, frustrations, or desires for our products to write me directly. I'd love to understand more about frustrations you have and help communicate that back to the product management team.

I can't promise you we can change everything, but I can promise you we are listening to our customers want to continue to deliver the most complete and productive solutions for PDF processing, preflight and automation available on the market.

So, if you'd like to be heard, drop me an email. If you're in North America, let's talk. I'd love to hear more.

Sincerely,
Michael Reiher
Product Manager, Enfocus
[email protected]

 

[mattbeals]

Zoran, the upgrade from 9 to 10 is worth it. But If you are expecting PitStop Pro to turn into Neo/PitStop Extreme it's something that has been long debated my many people. And as of yet, nothing. Consider this, PitStop Extreme is sold as is.

 

[Joe]

10 is much better than 9. But 10 still takes a lot more clicks than 7 did. One example is the Inspector. In version 7.x you click on the image and click a button to convert it to CMYK, RGB, or Gray. In 10 you have to click the image, click the menu, click on the menu item you want. Those clicks add up after preflighting PDF's for 8 to 10 hours everyday. Version 10 does have more features than previous versions. A lot of people will never find them though as they did an excellent job of hiding them in obscure places. It really makes me scratch my head trying to figure out what they were thinking when changing the UI from 7 to what it has become in 10.

 

[frailer]

Took some getting used to. If you don't get to the Prepress Layout drop-down, prepress stuff is hidden.
But it is a case of familiarity. But some odd things. Like 'Edit Page Boxes' tool button. (hash with pencil over it). OK, you can select it, but it doesn't become 'active' (4-way arrow), until it's hovered over a page box. This subtlety eluded me for too long.
You get into that area via the star/dropdown, upper right in DLP window. But you knew that....

And as you can see from my presets, I still haven't tidied up after the learning curve. Must do that...

 

[the_brain]

Took some getting used to. If you don't get to the Prepress Layout drop-down, prepress stuff is hidden.
But it is a case of familiarity. But some odd things. Like 'Edit Page Boxes' tool button. (hash with pencil over it). OK, you can select it, but it doesn't become 'active' (4-way arrow), until it's hovered over a page box. This subtlety eluded me for too long.
You get into that area via the star/dropdown, upper right in DLP window. But you knew that....

And as you can see from my presets, I still haven't tidied up after the learning curve. Must do that...

On top of that you can use the edit page box tool in combination with the inspector panel. When you have page box list open in the inspector and ou select e.g. The trim box, the edit page box tool will work on the trim. Especially interesting when you have boxes on top of each other. Update 3 only, though.

Cheers,
Bert

 

[mglouis]

While we are on about someone moving our cheese, is there a way to get RGB values (0-255) from the eyedropper instead of percentage values in Pitstop 10?

Matt Louis

 

[the_brain]

While we are on about someone moving our cheese, is there a way to get RGB values (0-255) from the eyedropper instead of percentage values in Pitstop 10?

Matt Louis

Yes, there is a pref which allows you to change the rgb values.

Bert

 

[JoeatData]

Always good to have the info with a newer version. I don't think I will be in a hurry for version 10.

I have actually gotten use to version 9. But I was forced to. Since upgrading to 9, my version 7 quits whenever I try to preflight.
I do lots of offsets depending on the job and customer. The mirror option is nice in version 9. I hate the way the tile works when printing in version 9. I always go back to version 7.

 

[mglouis]

I like v10, however, it is disheartening that floating palettes behave like documents when tiling horizontally or vertically (shift/cmd/K|L). It would be nice if tools could be selected on an application level rather than a document level.

And thanks to the_brain for the preference tip two posts back.

Matt Louis

 

[the_brain]

I like v10, however, it is disheartening that floating palettes behave like documents when tiling horizontally or vertically (shift/cmd/K|L). It would be nice if tools could be selected on an application level rather than a document level.

And thanks to the_brain for the preference tip two posts back.

Matt Louis

Matt,

I'm afraid that's an Adobe restriction/change, since version 8 or 9 of Acrobat. Nevertheless, i understand your frustration. I had the same feeling.

Bert

 

[kantblue]

The worst part about Pitstop 9 and 10 for me is how much time it takes to load. When I first elect to view Pitstop inspector it can take 5 to 10 minutes of my PC running at 100cpu so I can't even do anything else! Support suggested I reduce the number of fonts I have open but no other application has this problem. Maybe different on the Mac of course.

I also find it easier to use Pitstop 6 for our simplest action - change ALL page boxes in a document to the crop box setting. I still can't find a simple way to do this in Pitstop 10 - any advice gratefully accepted?

Kantblue

 

[the_brain]

The worst part about Pitstop 9 and 10 for me is how much time it takes to load. When I first elect to view Pitstop inspector it can take 5 to 10 minutes of my PC running at 100cpu so I can't even do anything else! Support suggested I reduce the number of fonts I have open but no other application has this problem. Maybe different on the Mac of course.

I also find it easier to use Pitstop 6 for our simplest action - change ALL page boxes in a document to the crop box setting. I still can't find a simple way to do this in Pitstop 10 - any advice gratefully accepted?

Kantblue

I have no direct solution for the first issue. Does this happen with all files you open in Acrobat? I would think fonts is only an issue when selecting a text element on the page. Can you add a screen grab of what the inspector is,showing after the time-out?

About the second, you can it in several ways. It might take you 5 to 10 minutes to configure but once that's done it's one cick deal.
Easiest way is to create an action list that will do the following:
Change bleed/trim/media/art box to crop box (these are 5 separate actions)

Then allocate that action list to a quickrun that will perform it on the complete file.

You can find both the action list and quickrun panel in the 'plug-ins' menu of acrobat.

Bert