Preflight

A preflight (engl. Pre-flight control ) is in the printing industry, the software-based interpretation and testing of typesetting and image data or PDFs according to predefined rules: a pre-PDF or pre-print control . Standard checks for record data are: Is all image data accessible? Are required fonts activated? Analogous to PDF files: Are the color spaces assigned correctly? Have fonts or lines / contours been vectorized or pixelated ? Does all image data have the required resolution? Are (the correct) spot colors in the document? Is the overcrowding ( trapping ) correct ?

Programs for preflighting open files

Open files are layout documents and associated image files, graphics and fonts from desktop publishing programs such as InDesign , QuarkXPress or Scribus . All three programs have their own preflight function: InDesign and Scribus refer to this as "preflight"; in QuarkXPress it is part of the so-called “ job jacket ” function.

Programs for PDF preflighting

• Apache preflight
• Asura
• callas pdfToolbox
• FlightCheck Professional
• FlightCheck Online
• pdfInspector
• PitStop Professional
• Prinect PDF Toolbox
• Prinect Prepress Manager
• Prinergy
• Puzzleflow
• Speedflow

Adobe Acrobat has had its own preflight functions since version 6 in the “Professional” version. These were developed by Callas Software GmbH .