Do you preflight incoming or outgoing PDF files?

[Laurens]

A recent study showed that a significant number of PDF files do not get preflighted before being used for film or plate output.

I have put a poll on Prepressure.com asking people whether they actually check incoming or outgoing data. Feel free to cast your vote or discuss your (company) policy in this thread.

Personally I think automated preflighting takes up so little operator time that there is no point not to preflight every single file that comes in. I must admit that I don't check every file that I send out though 

[Chelle]

Even though we now have Prinergy, we don't get ALL files as PDF's - and I PREFER it that way in case something is WRONG. Which is more than likely the case. We check each and every PDF file that we get. We HAVE to.

I will say that I TRY to make sure I check the PDF's I send out as proofs, but I will admit that there are crazy busy days when I may miss something.

[jezza]

We only get open files incoming...

Out going?

That's what I'm paid for

[ratintrap]

I preflight all of the ad PDFs that customers send to us (using Acrobat 9, not Pit Stop). I would estimate that about 80% of the files we receive need some sort of fix. A big contributor to the large percent of files that need fixes is the fact that the company I work for is shamefully behind the times software wise (Pagemaker 7 for page and ad layout ).

I have just recently begun to preflight the PDFs we send to our printer, before that I did a quick visual inspection of each file to check for obvious typos and did a quick check of the document properties to make sure the fonts were embedded. Our printer doesn't require us to do a preflight, they just want us to do the visual inspection, I like to go the extra mile though.

Our printer has rarely had trouble with our PDFs, I just decided to do the preflight out of curiousity. I did turn up some stray "problems" with the preflights, they are things that our printer apparently didn't have trouble with in the past. If they did have trouble with them I would hope that they would tell me because my goal is to give them the cleanest PDFs possible.

We are kind of a rinky dink operation and I don't really consider myself much of an expert compared to the other people on the forum so I would think that their opinions would be of greater value to you Laurens. It's just my two cents, for what it's worth.


-Rat

[Joe]

We don't really send out files. We, being the printer, receive files from customers and we preflight every single page that comes in. Not because we love it but because we find it necessary. I wish I had a nickel for every mistake I've found with customer supplied files. I'd be a very rich man. I always tell them to check their PDF's before sending them but I know for a fact that they don't. They create the PDF, throw it on the ftp site and go home. They don't ever bother to wait and see if it makes it across to the ftp site. I open one up and it will have a big white hole where an ad was supposed to be. When I call them about it, I always say, "you really should check your PDF's before you send them to us" and 100% of the time they say, "we do check the PDF's". They must think I'm stupid because if anyone had checked the PDF's they'd never send it with a big hole where something is missing.

So, to answer the question for my customers, they would say yes, they always check their PDF's before sending them out. They are LIARS!!! 

[tapdn]

We check all incoming PDF files through Pitstop server using our custom profiles. Files created inhouse are generated using our custom distiller settings and as far as I know are not preflighted again prior to being added to Preps workflow.

[ratintrap]

They create the PDF, throw it on the ftp site and go home. They don't ever bother to wait and see if it makes it across to the ftp site.

 


-Rat

[Adriano]

We preflight almost all jobs. We actually treat all preflight as real jobs. We rip them and, if folders or fold out, we actually check if they are going to work ok or not. The rep gets a blue ticket with all the things that are wrong so he can pass it to the client or the ticket goes upstair in planning to get the impo and job bag. It takes longer but at the end, if the job it is ok, we only have to impose it and proof it.

[frailer]

Definitely. Just this morning got a really simple ad: 4 col "mono" pic, which is OK, but the red for the client logo, the only content apart from an outlined line of type, was Spot col.
Have been using a preflight profile in Acro 7, but this week hope to move to preflighting in 9 Pro, (CS4 installed last Friday).

So, it's into an EAL/Inspector, whatever it takes to make it right.
Shall register on your poll now, Laurens.

Outgoing? If it doesn't RIP, I have to preflight it...but I guess that's a postflight.     

[david]

We preflight all incoming files, be it PDF or Native.
Just can't trust them dezingers.

now as far as outgoing, we know we do it right, so why check...

LOL

[30YearsandCounting]

It's taken a real long time to make it happen... but we check/preflight every incoming file.  PDF or native file, everything gets checked and a preflight report is given to the CSR if there is a problem or to Planning if everything passes.  It's all part of the ISO process.

[jimking]

We preflight all incoming files, be it PDF or Native.
Just can't trust them dezingers.

now as far as outgoing, we know we do it right, so why check...

LOL

What david said..

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

I check them, but NOT using any Preflight Software. To become intimate with any job, I prefer to do it manually. Besides, I don't, and never have trusted automation of any sort.

[PrepressCrapFixer]

I never use any preflight software on native files, like DCS I will do a manual inspection.  Usually will run a Pitstop preflight on all supplied PDFs.  I usually know what it is I'm looking for that will give me trouble.

[hansonian]

i don't check outgoing files (we don't have too many of those and since i do them i know they're right). as far as customer files, i manually check them. i've seen automated things get wonky and miss things. the only way i know 100% it's right is to look at it with my own eyes.