The Lynda.com videos so a lot to help one to get a good solid knowledge of the software; such as Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Photoshop. But from what I've seen, there is only a course in Prepress for inDesign at Lynda.com.
From what I have seen, there is really no course of instruction available that will prepare a person for working as a prepress technician. Prepress Training Solution (which I tried for a few months soon after getting into my company's art room from being on press) may have showed one how to make the setting in software, such as turning a Quark or InDesign file into a Post Script file for conversion to PDF, but it DID NOT prepare me for the multitude of problems that one gets when one accepts the electronic submission of art work from a customer. I'm talking about problems such as having to convert all electronic submissions of customer's artwork in to Illustrator files or .eps graphics because of our Service providers submission requirements. Because we have to do this, we have color space problems (RGB which should be CMYK), the clipping paths that were generated by the conversion to PDF which lock every object to the page size of the original file (we have to take these into consideration because many times the customer will make their artwork to large for the folder that they want us to create for them, so we have to resize.
Then there are the missing fonts issues that are with us in just about every file we receive. The company I work for will allow for MS word files and Excel files and Publisher files to be accepted as (dripping very heavily with SARCASM) camera ready art. Just by chance I discovered that Word will not give you a warning that it has submitted a font from your system for a font that was used in the document that isn't on your system.
And trying to convert word files into Illustrator files… Copy and paste is messed up. We've found that to convert them first to PDF files and then open them in Illustrator works best but is not perfect.
Because of the type of product we produce, (Custom File folders) we aren't usually concerned with trapping of colors because we are mostly a 1-2 color shop without close registration. And the flattening of transparency isn't a problem either because we don't have an image setter, and still shoot line shots with an old camera from laser printer printouts. We adjust the dot pattern for tints in the laser printer (65LPI, 85LPI, etc so we can have a clean screened area for those tinted areas.
Now the work flows for prepress areas vary with each shop out there. Because we don't all use the same equipment and its accompanying software our headaches will for the most part be unique to our particular work flow. But we all have common areas of problems, Designers that don't know how to prep a file for us, missing fonts, files submitted in the wrong color space, sub par graphics submitted with the artwork such as low resolution jpgs for the logo artwork. Not to mention receiving files created on software that one never even heard of…
But from my short experience with pre-press (2 and 1/2 years to date) I have found no course of study that teaches one how to trouble shoot a customer's art file. It has been learn as I go with success being measured by lack of complaints by our customers and by our service providers.
It is a learn as you go process working with Prepress. If you have some in your department who have been doing it a long time, learn from them. Pass on what you learn from them and what you learn from your own personal experience to others that follow you. Learn about the publishing software (Illustrator, Acrobat, Photoshop, InDesign, Quark, etc) as much as you can for these are your basic tools and where the mistakes you have to correct were originated and these are the tools you will have to make those corrections with. Learn your RIP software and imposition software to the best of your ability, keeping in mind that there is always a tip or better way to be discovered. Always be open minded and willing to learn, never think that you have learned it all because in our job learning can never stop.
Well I've rambled on enough. Like I've said, I've discovered no course that will teach us how to trouble shoot a customers submitted art file, and what I have found out there for prepress is very simplistic and not very realistic in its approach to pre-press. I really wish there was a book or website that actually dealt with prepress headaches but i haven't found them.
Sorry for rambling
Bill J
