PrePress Mistakes

[gordo]

[SNIP]After delivery of the job the customers tells us of a mistake. Although it was approved to go on press by the customer the mistake was something obvious as the year being wrong on the form. [SNIP]What would be the best approach to fix this situation? and should the customer get this job rerun at no cost or what?

Printers are not obliged to proof customer files for things like typos as they are not qualified to know whether what they think is a mistake vs what the customer intended. As an example, I once did a technical brochure in which the term "adsorption" occurred. My printer's prepress folks thought that they had caught a typo in the signed off proof and changed it to "absorption" thinking they were doing me a favor. They got to reprint the job as a result.

A proof should have a sign-off tag which warns the person signing it that by signing it they warrant that the job can now go to press and that the printer is not liable for any customer errors and/or omissions. Usually the physical act of signing does make the customer a little bit aware that they should have checked the proof thoroughly.

Unfortunately proofing documents is somewhat of a lost art - so, you might consider creating a customer help document that provides some tips about proofing (e.g. have someone unfamiliar with the document proof it)

best, gordonp

my print blog here: Quality In Print

 

[flybynitepress02]

Printers are not obliged to proof customer files for things like typos as they are not qualified to know whether what they think is a mistake vs what the customer intended. As an example, I once did a technical brochure in which the term "adsorption" occurred. My printer's prepress folks thought that they had caught a typo in the signed off proof and changed it to "absorption" thinking they were doing me a favor. They got to reprint the job as a result.

A proof should have a sign-off tag which warns the person signing it that by signing it they warrant that the job can now go to press and that the printer is not liable for any customer errors and/or omissions. Usually the physical act of signing does make the customer a little bit aware that they should have checked the proof thoroughly.

Unfortunately proofing documents is somewhat of a lost art - so, you might consider creating a customer help document that provides some tips about proofing (e.g. have someone unfamiliar with the document proof it)

best, gordonp

my print blog here: Quality In Print

This proof has the usual sign-off sheet attached, (with the legal mumbo) now for the caveat, the file supplied by the customer had the correct year in it but wasn't used in the old file that is "updated" each year with the customers new text. They supply a word file so we can copy and paste it into our old layout. Somehow the headline was not pasted into the doc and that made it the wrong year. It seems as though we even go as far as providing a proof that was signed off, it still carries no weight in this matter. What would be your resolution for this pending rerun..??

 

[gordo]

IMHO, it doesn't matter who made the mistake in the file, you, a freelance production artist, a tradeshop, or whomever. The responsibility lies with the person who signed off on the proof as acceptable to go to press. That being said, since it appears that you made the error that your customer didn't catch...I think that you might want to look at the value of your relationship with them and their total business with you. If you reprint at no cost to your customer but make them aware that in fact ultimate responsibility was theirs and hence you are not obligated to reprint at your cost you may gain a great deal of good will in the eyes of your customer at relatively little cost to you. This has happened to me in the past and created an unspoken obligation on new projects to print with the company that saved my butt. You might instead opt to compromise and pay part of the cost, e.g. labor and press time while they pay for the paper. In other words a shared responsibility. This has also happened to me - being met halfway on costs did make a big difference to me as a buyer. Or, you could be hard-nosed and stick to your position, they pay for the reprint or get the job printed elsewhere. Ater all, technically they are the ones that screwed up by signing off on the proof and letting you go to press. In that case, I as a buyer would likely go elsewhere for my next project.

It's a question of your relationship with the customer.

best, gordo

my print blog here: Quality In Print

 

[flybynitepress02]

Thanks Gordo for the reply, I think I will have a talk with our sales rep and explain that the free passes have to stop and with all proofs we are going to change the way we present our customers with a proof of their jobs. Hard copy can have an envelope containing the proof and a "warning" (i.e. the usual legal Jargon) that by breaking the seal on this envelope they have accepted the content of the job and any changes must be returned with the proof for further revision. Does anybody preface an electronic file in this way? There are many accounts that we have now that we just pdf a proof back to them. I guess we could put the same legal in the e-mailed attachment and make that prominent in the e-mail. Most of the e-mails appear personal or businesslike in nature but don't contain any of the legal language for our e-mailed proofs. I don't want to "scare" people with this "warning" but I don't know what else to do, something has to change that the people we work with have to know we are giving THEM the final ok to go to press. "Them" being the office secretaries and "non designer types" we have to deal with. We try constantly to try to educate the customers we work with and help with file submission to get the job done right. what are your thoughts?

 

[gordo]

[SNIP]Hard copy can have an envelope containing the proof and a "warning" (i.e. the usual legal Jargon) that by breaking the seal on this envelope they have accepted the content of the job and any changes must be returned with the proof for further revision. Does anybody preface an electronic file in this way? There are many accounts that we have now that we just pdf a proof back to them. I guess we could put the same legal in the e-mailed attachment and make that prominent in the e-mail. [SNIP] We try constantly to try to educate the customers we work with and help with file submission to get the job done right. what are your thoughts?

The customer sign-off tag needs to be physically attached to the document if it's a physical proof - not on the outside of an envelope or on a separate sheet of paper. You can add a page form as the first page to the PDFs you send for digital proofing which you require being "signed off" by the reviewer typing in their name as well as anyone else that needs to proof the job. If the PDF is returned without sign of in the form (doesn't matter what they say in the return email - then you do not go to press but request that they send you another copy that's been signed off.
You could also check with your prepress vendor - some of them provide customer/printer job tracking which includes mechanisms for digital proof sign offs over the net through a B2B portal.
You can try and educate, however they will likely not learn until the lack of learning costs them money. I.e. if you bail them out there is no incentive for them to learn.
You don't have to be overly legal or threatening with the proof sign-off. Just state that an authorized signature and date is required before you can go to press and that the proof represents the content of the document that will be printed and that you will not be responsible for any customer errors or omissions.

best, gordo

my print blog here: Quality In Print