Soft Proofing — Virtually a Lock

“Our speed of adoption has been faster than we planned,” he says. “Our printers have embraced it so enthusiastically, we had to curb their enthusiasm. We initially did two test forms and they wanted to spread the (soft proofing) implementation to the whole book.”

Time Inc. not only stopped delivering hard copy proofs to those printers, it also has said it will no longer accept hard copy proofs for advertisements. That directive is now part of the published ad submission instructions on the appropriate Websites, which also specify that PDF/x1a files be submitted as an integral component of the new workflow.