Pre-Flight Software For Mac Supports Font Tools

Flightcheck v6 for Macintosh, which includes QuarkXPress 7 and Adobe InDesign CS3 support has been launched by Markzware.

Flightcheck is a patented quality control program for the print and publishing industries that verifies properly prepared digital content.

Flightcheck v6 supports third-party font applications and font management tools, such as Extensis Suitcase Fusion, Insider Software Fontagent Pro, Linotype Fontexplorer and Apple Font Book .

The new version also automatically creates fonts and images subfolders whenever collecting jobs for print.

Enhanced font and image searching users have the ability to set up customised font and image paths for prioritising where those components should be searched for first, said Markzware.

When jobs are collected, they now have 'pass' or 'fail' folder icons.

X and Y effective resolution for Images shown on screen in the overview window is a further feature.

At the same time, a printed page number shows for images taking in to account section numbers and front matter and rear matter pages.

There is also a new preference for print that allows user control over font and icon size for printed reports.

Markzware's chief executive officer, Patrick Marchese, commented: "Print and publishing technologies are constantly advancing and businesses need a dependable, quality control pre-flight system that takes advantage of those improvements." He added: "New features within the recent releases of Quark 7 and InDesign v5, part of the Adobe CS3 package, provide designers added convenience.

However, new features can open the door to more errors.

Printers and publishers are pressured to provide faster turn-around and at the same time control expenses to maximise already low margins." Marchese claimed that Flightcheck 6 delivers on Markzware's promise to provide customers with top-flight pre-flighting to compete and prospert.

Companies that are looking to streamline their digital print output and eliminate costly re-runs should consider FlightCheck as their quality-control system, he added.

Flightcheck 6 has been in Beta since last November with 30 Markzware clients and during the last few weeks, the beta program has been opened to thousands of Flightcheck users, worldwide.

The testing group included Siquis, one of America's leading marketing firms.

Bruce Robinson, Siquis's manager of pre-press operations explained: "Flightcheck 6 is much improved over Flightcheck 5, especially in the area of detecting missing fonts and this is going to make a lot of people happy.

Now it offers us the robust quality control we need for the high-end output the customers expect." And he continued: "Our pre-press studio processes a wide variety of digital files from sources including, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe InDesign and Quark.

Flightcheck, being a stand-alone application, allows us to make the most of our productivity, eliminating errors and re-runs." Randy Burke, art director of House Magazine in Long Island, New York (USA) commented: "We are a small regional company publishing a high-end 200-page magazine, six times a year for affluent and savvy Long Islanders.

If our work is not reproduced in a meticulous, first-class style our advertisers are right on the phone to our owner and all hell breaks loose." He added: "We have two weeks production time for each issue and Flightcheck's ability to verify multiple documents in one session allows us to keep this breakneck speed and still maintain the quality we require." Meanwhile, Sebastian Nafroth, the managing director of 3f8h.net electronic publishing in Germany, a service provider for the graphic arts industry, uses Flightcheck primarily for PDF files.

Nafroth commented on the new release: "Standardised PDF pre-flighting is very important to 3f8h.net and the majority of our media customers.

We are responsible for delivering accurate print-ready work on time, every time.

Flightcheck's new 'auto-switching' feature detects if the file is a PDF, or from source files like Quark or InDesign.

When we are checking PDF files, Flightcheck will switch to a standard PDF-X check.

This is a major interface improvement allowing us to provide PDF compliancy and hassle-free quality output control." Jim Yarrow runs Maccimizer, a Macintosh-centered technical support company based in Santa Ana, California and, in addition to being a certified Markzware trainer, has been involved in print production for more than 25 years.

He said: "Flightcheck has been an indispensable part of my production toolkit ever since I used it the first time.

Flightcheck's customisable control panels let me check every job quickly for the 'deal breakers' and get them fixed.

It collect the jobs very efficiently.

I've seen what some people call 'jobs,' that I'd call 'train wrecks,' because they haven't bothered to check that the job is suitable for production." And he added: "In my estimation, Flightcheck is a must-have for anyone who has to make sure jobs are ready for press or outside vendors." Refined User Interface for PDF Preflighting Includes automatic switching between PDF and non-PDF preflight rules.

This helps those companies with mixed workflows achieve unparalleled performance and accuracy with standardized PDF rule sets like PDF-X and The Ghent PDF Workgroup's PDF-X Plus specifications.

QuarkXPress 7 and Adobe InDesign CS3 Support FlightCheck is now Universal Binary compatible with Native Apple Macintosh Intel machines and allows users to preflight QuarkXPress v7 and Adobe InDesign v5 from a single and central stand-alone application.

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