PREPRESS OPERATIONS -- Grounding Your Clients in Preflight

BY MARK SMITH

Technology Editor

To paraphrase Albert Einstein, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the result to change. File preparation for print almost fits that definition, except no one has really expected the results to change.

For going on 20 years, the graphic arts community has been vexed by missing fonts, RGB images, inadequate image resolutions and other issues that result in "bad files." What has made this situation all the more frustrating is that the problems and remedies are commonly known.

The disconnect between the design/creative and production stages of the process helps to explain why issues with files have persisted to today. Those creating the files have been largely shielded from the pain their actions cause. As a result, they haven't been sufficiently motivated to change their ways.

Printers face an uphill battle in getting clients more deeply vested in the process, but technology is helping them find a way.

According to Scott Borhauer, central premedia manager, Brown Printing is entering the final stage of a major initiative to bridge the divide between file creation and production, client and print provider. Its initial steps were reported on in the August 2003 edition of Printing Impressions ("Making Customers' Work Flow Better," page 36). Roll out had been slated for the end of 2003, but was pushed back into the first part of 2004.

The printing organization, headquartered in Waseca, MN, primarily produces weekly publications. That means each edition must be completed on a tighter schedule than in a monthly environment, Borhauer points out.

Prep Work Is Vital

Client turnaround time demands don't allow for much of a fudge factor to deal with problems, should they arise. "Therefore, we do a great deal of work up front toward educating our customers on good file preparation," Borhauer reports. And yet, "only about 60 to 70 percent of customers routinely send in good files," he adds.

The company is taking a tiered approach in deploying digital connections to its customer base. Providing the foundation will be DALiM Mistral, a JDF-based automated production and communication system, and DiALOGUE, a Mac OSX-based soft proofing solution.

Borhauer says the intent is to apply as much automation as possible to the preparation of plate-ready files. Through the combination of e-mail alerts and browser-based, online displays, MiSTRAL will keep clients informed of the status of their jobs, including any problems encountered. DiALOGUE enables the final files that will be used for platemaking to be viewed and approved online, in high resolution and at the line screen intended to be output.

"Preflighting is not an exact science," the premedia manager asserts. "There are so many parameters that can be set too strict, so nothing gets through, or too loose, so bad things can get through to the plate. You need to find a happy medium."

At Brown Printing, files with RGB images or missing fonts are rejected from the workflow, but those with low-resolution images, especially something like a small logo, may be allowed to pass, Borhauer explains. "In that case, we would ask the customer to come online to view the file and 'accept' or 'decline' it. We can capture the acceptance or decline using an XML tag and metadata, which also logs the date and person's identity."

Where tiers come into play is in how customers submit jobs to the printer. Borhauer reports the company has seen broad adoption of PDF within its customer base, in part to facilitate publishing to multiple media, including e-books and the Web. Brown prefers customers to submit PDF/X1-a files, since the format offers better predictability than broadband PDF in printing applications, and it offers price breaks on those files as an incentive, the premedia manager notes.

The printing organization drives home the importance of submitting good files in a couple of ways, Borhauer says. "We traditionally try not to fix a client's file. If there's time, we like to get back to the customer, identify the problem and ask for a new file," he notes. "If a job's going on-press, we give a client the option of having us fix it (for a fee) because that's better than holding up the press."

Brown also educates clients on the use of preflighting tools—Enfocus PitStop for those using a PDF workflow and Markzware FlightCheck for clients who've yet to graduate beyond the application file workflow.

The top tier of the company's workflow strategy involves collaborating with select clients to install DaLiM SWiNG workflow solutions at their sites, Borhauer reveals. "We've extended our production arm out to customers," he says. "It's all about print predictability."

Clients can print a file to SWiNG, which then automatically preflights and processes the file into a "normalized" state. The end result is a PDF/P2 (for Print Predictable) raster-based file within a PDF shell, which is sent to Brown via FTP. Files submitted by the shop's other clients undergo similar processing on its internal TWiST workflow system.

Its success at pilot sites in 2003 has convinced Brown Printing to more aggressively pursue SWiNG installations in 2004, Borhauer says. He adds that current users have called up to say, "We now see all of the things that you've had to deal with. We didn't realize how much work you were doing to the files that we sent."

Getting a print buyer to appreciate the need for preflighting often represents just one layer in the process. Files may be prepared by a separate design department or outside agency. Or, in the case of publishers, digital ads may come from any number of sources.

Print brokers can add yet another layer. For that reason, print broker Dan Dour, president of DB Inc. in San Jose, CA, says preflighting becomes critical to his role as a vendor and a client. Having to relay messages makes it harder to resolve problems, but the added time factor involved is the bigger issue, he says.

Files potentially have to get from the client to the print broker, then be delivered to the printer, Dour notes. "You can get 48 hours into a job, from the client's perspective, before the printer even starts looking at the file. Meanwhile, the client thinks the job should already have been started and wants to see the proof," he says.

The Blame Game

If the printer finds what it considers to be a problem with a file, a round of finger pointing and complaining can follow. "You don't know who is correct. Is it the prepress department, the client or the designer?," Dour questions.

To avoid such headaches and facilitate processing of jobs, the print broker has implemented a preflighting solution he's branded Ready2RIP. It is based on the Markznet technology from Markzware Software.

"I wanted a solution that would look and feel like it was my own branded product. That way it becomes an advertising tool," Dour says.

Once the small client-side application is installed, users can drag-and-drop files onto a desktop icon. The program then does an initial scan of the file and connects to a Web page containing preflight parameters set up by Dour.

"Clients don't think of it as preflighting, but just how they submit a job to me," the print broker says. "It's an automatic FTP solution for them. Clients just click the send button and their files are automatically compressed and sent.

"I position Ready2RIP as a quality control tool," he continues. "If they submit files to me using this method and the files pass the preflight check, I can all but guarantee customers will not hear back from me until they see a proof."

In addition to being a production tool, Dour believes Ready2RIP gives him a competitive advantage and is something he can sell. "It motivates me to pick up the phone and make sales calls," he explains. "I don't have to be a prepress expert, since the knowledge is encapsulated in this small tool that users put on their desktop."

Quicker turnaround of jobs is the primary benefit the print broker sells to his clients, but he also tries to give them a financial incentive. If a printer routinely charges for preflighting, he negotiates to have the fee deducted, thereby saving clients money.

Dour says he introduces clients to the technology on the first sales call and tries to be proactive in convincing them of its value. "You can find out a lot about the personality of the print buyer by discussing preflighting with them early on," he says. "It helps me determine how to price work to them, as well."

If push comes to shove and a client refuses to use the software, the print broker says he still accepts the job and gets the file another way. "But then what I'll do is run a preflight on my own computer before I submit the job to the print shop. I also send the client a copy of the report," he reveals.

The print vendors Dour works with don't need to have to their own subscriptions to the service. An e-mail—containing the report and a link to the file—is generated from each preflight, which he simply forwards to the printer.

"I adopted this product to help keep my business running in a down economy, taking in small jobs I wouldn't have wanted to touch in the past. I still wouldn't touch them if I didn't have this technology," Dour offers as a final thought.

Printer Matt Kelly, vice president of Graphic Dimensions in San Antonio, has a slightly different philosophy about the file submission and preflighting process than the other two industry execs.

"Graphic designers are artists, and artists don't use rulers. They're left-brain people who don't like to get into a lot of technical detail," Kelly asserts. "We're trades people, so we pay attention to the details."

Graphic Dimensions strives to be easy to do business with and gives clients fewer headaches, Kelly says. "Clients don't want to get files back to make fixes. In their mind, that job is complete and off their desk. Even the more advanced designers we work with will tell us to just fix any problems," he reports.

Clients also don't like to be charged for every little thing, the company exec adds. "Some have even told us they stopped doing business with another printer because of all the charges," he says. "We tend to overlook a lot because we make it up in the amount of sales we do with the client. We're better off in the long run not charging them."

The printer does tell customers about problems with their files, especially if an extensive fix is required. Since they may incur charges in such cases, clients are given the opportunity to fix the problem themselves, Kelly notes.

Graphic Dimensions has only been in business about three years, which enabled it to adopt a PDF-based internal workflow from day one. It uses Enfocus PitStop to preflight and edit all of its PDF files.

Going Native

However, with a few exceptions, the printer discourages clients from submitting PDFs. "Unless it's a customer that normally provides a good file, we still prefer to get the native application file. That's because PDFs actually are more difficult to edit if there is a problem," he explains.

The printer has had some clients insist on submitting PDFs and, on a very select basis, it has given clients copies of the InstantPDF application to help them create proper PDF files. These are customers that normally provide good files. "They may do their own internal checks of files, or just have a designer that is very meticulous," he says.

Like most printers, Graphic Dimensions has posted file preparation instructions on its Website. Face-to-face instruction, usually by Kelly himself, is also provided at client facilities.

The executive holds out hope that technology will yet resolve this issue for the industry. He notes that his company has been steering clients toward using Adobe InDesign instead of QuarkXPress because of the former's ability to produce a better PDF (now including PDF/X1-a and 3 versions).

Kelly is also intrigued by the Version Que collaboration technology Adobe introduced in Creative Suite. He sees the potential to work with clients and their files remotely and much earlier in the process to identify and correct any issues that might create problems in production.

There's a certain irony in the industry having to throw more and more technology at a problem that essentially stems from human error. In this situation, perhaps Freud would be a better source for inspiration than Einstein.