Hi all

Over the coming year we are going to hold regular monthly online customer workshops.

The topics of those workshops will be decided by you, our customers.
We invite you to submit your questions, topics or problem files to us and we will try and include them in the workshops.

You can register for the Workshops on the following links. We currently have sessions planned for November, December and January, always on the first Wednesday in the month, always at the same time.

PitStop Monthly Online Workshops – November
https://enfocus.webex.com/enfocus/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=648937155

Date and time: Wednesday, November 5, 2014
4:00 pm Europe Time (Brussels, GMT+01:00)
8:30 pmIndia Time (Mumbai, GMT+05:30)
10:00 am Eastern Standard Time (New York, GMT-05:00)
7:00 amPacific Standard Time (San Francisco, GMT-08:00)    

PitStop Monthly Online Workshops – December
https://enfocus.webex.com/enfocus/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=648859626

Date and time: Wednesday, December 3, 2014
4:00 pm Europe Time (Brussels, GMT+01:00)
8:30 pm India Time (Mumbai, GMT+05:30)
10:00 am Eastern Standard Time (New York, GMT-05:00)
7:00 am Pacific Standard Time (San Francisco, GMT-08:00)

PitStop Monthly Online Workshops – January
https://enfocus.webex.com/enfocus/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=644880207

Date and time: Wednesday, January 7, 2015
4:00 pm Europe Time (Brussels, GMT+01:00)
8:30 pm India Time (Mumbai, GMT+05:30)
10:00 am Eastern Standard Time (New York, GMT-05:00)
7:00 am Pacific Standard Time (San Francisco, GMT-08:00)

Workshop Duration: 1 hour

To suggest content for the Workshop please email:andrewb@enfocus.com' with the headline 'Workshop Suggestion
This can be any topic you desire. A request for more information, input on how to handle a certain PDF file, training on a particular feature or functionality.
Any files supplied may be used in the webinar, but will be deleted immediately once the webinar is finished.
Please note that these webinars are not a substitute for our customer support system. Any problems or issues should be reported to 'support@enfocus.com'

We hope the webinars and workshops are useful, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Hi all

Anyone having an issue where the objects are not pasted in the same position when moved between pages or documents?

There's an easy fix, but I'm just wondering if people are suffering in silence?

You read it right, it's free plugin, and to get it all you have to do is tweet or post on social media.

It's something you can tell your customers about, it works with Acrobat standard and Acrobat Pro.

It basically checks for missing fonts. If you have missing fonts in your PDF and they are available locally it will embed them.
If you haven't got the fonts, You can logon to the Montype Cloud service where there are 70,000 fonts available.
You can see what the document will look like with the fonts embedded and if you are happy with the result you can embed them for 39 cents per font per document.

Feel free to share the link.  http://www.enfocus.com/en/products/pitstop-font-fix/

Hi all - You might be interested in this preflight profile. It requires PitStop 12 update 2.

It's a test preflight profile for fixing with office based PDF's.

https://esko.box.com/s/flivjr6mtp9qc5vfcleh

It's not really much of a preflight profile as it really just fixes files, it's based on the premiss that anything from an Office application is going to be RGB with no bleed and some questionable content, and then does it's best to make it work.

The Preflight Profile creates a PDF/X-4 file with live transparency and uses the ISO coated v2 ICC profile as a output intent.

Other things it does
Converts all content to CMYK, but keeps Black on the K separation.
Makes sure Black overprints where necessary.
Adds correct PDF Page Boxes and Crop Marks
Tries to Add Bleed where possible.
Ensures thin lines are a printable thickness
Flattens form fields so they are printable
Makes sure white objects knockout
Ensures the transparency blend space is CMYK.

What it will preflight
Once it's made all these fixes the preflight will take place. This will check for.
Empty pages
Makes sure the pages are all the same size
Makes sure there are no objects close to the trim edge
Checks for the presence of bleed
Checks for the use of transparency (just so you know it's used)
Checks for missing fonts
Checks images are above 250dpi

This is a trial profile at the moment. What I would ask is that you give me feedback on how you find it.
If you have any files that you think could be handled better, then could you please send them to me so we can try and develop the profile.
The idea is that we will ship it as standard in a future version of PitStop.

Join the Virtual Safari!

    What: Enfocus Virtual Safari
    When: May 18—23rd
    Where: Your desk

    25 speakers — 28 Sessions — All Free!

    Enfocus and our partners invites you to join the free expedition in this Virtual Safari, the industry's largest on-line tradeshow ever organized for the printing industry.

    This week-long safari features 28 educational and informative one-hour expeditions given by industry experts on a variety of topics for the professional graphic arts market.

    Check out the full schedule at http://virtualsafari.enfocus.com/

    Sign up for as many sessions as you like! It's your opportunity to learn!

New PitStop version released today. PitStop 12 update 2. It's a free upgrade for anybody using version 12 or version 12.1.
More information on the link. http://lnkd.in/dEtdmXE

PitStop 12 update 1 now available, with OSX 10.9, Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 support.

Download update, upgrade download or trial (update on the right in purple). http://www.enfocus.com/en/products/pitstop-pro#overview

Thanks to all our customers who helped test this version. We had over 100 people using the software with no reported issues, this really helped us to quickly bring this release to the market.

Not supported yet so please don't risk it, we are testing the release version of OSX10.9 and I will update this thread when I have news.

Apple always tinker, and they made some last minute changes to the golden master, we have had some OSX beta testers report issues

 

http://www.enfocus.com/en/products/pitstop-pro#new
http://www.enfocus.com/en/products/pitstop-server#new

PitStop 12 brings cloud-based access to thousands of fonts

According to our customers, missing fonts are the most common problem print professionals are having when working with PDF files. Until today, these PDF files needed to be sent back to the client to replace the missing font, or the font needed to be bought.

Enfocus and Monotype have teamed up to provide a 21st century solution for this ancient problem. In PitStop 12 you can easily embed missing fonts from the cloud via the Monotype Baseline Platform.

http://www.enfocus.com/en/monotype

Alignment and group/ungroup

http://youtu.be/l2gKoSPSFNM

Enfocus
Counting down to PitStop Pro 12. Every week a new feature tutorial. Now: GRADIENT EDITING.
Gradient Editing: - new gradient tool - working with gradients in inspector - changing the attributes of a gradient - creating a new gradient

http://youtu.be/GWksvnZBHWI

We are counting down to PitStopPro 12. Every week a new feature tutorial. Now: Image Editing....

Image editing:
- Tonal curve editing
- Color conversion and mapping
- Brightness and contrast
- Unsharp masking

http://youtu.be/I5YN_yUwWfw

From my colleague Michael Reiher

Today we (Enfocus) announced an all new product line... Connect ALL and Connect YOU 11.

Enfocus Connect 11 combines PDF creation and quality control with hassle-free file delivery for the graphic arts professional. There are two editions in the family, Connect YOU for designers, and Connect ALL for service providers or creative organizations that work with many outside clients.

More details including informational webinars introducing the new product line can be found on the Enfocus Website at:

Connect YOU: http://www.enfocus.com/en/products/connect-you
Connect ALL: http://www.enfocus.com/en/products/connect-all

Webinars for Connect:
http://www.enfocus.com/en/webinars

Michael Reiher
Product Manager, Enfocus Connect

You heard it here first!

http://www.enfocus.com/en/pitstop-pro-12

Got a creo refined pdf that is huge, apparently it's got a proprietary alternate 'creo_AlternateView' image in it that I can't remove. Anyone seen this before?

Any idea how to turn this off in the normaliser, or what its doing there in the first place?

Hi everyone

We are looking for PitStop users who are interested in testing the latest and greatest versions of PitStop Pro and Server.
If this is something that you would be interested in participating in, please fill out the form on the following URL and we will contact you when the software is ready for test.

We are particularly interested in feedback from actual users as the usability and user interface of new features is extremely important to us and our customers.
You'll be invited to participate in webinars so you get a understanding of the new features and functionality, and we would expect you to log any issues with us.
Also the testing is under a Non-disclosure agreement which you can view before the beta actually starts.

The link to the form is as follows: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PitStopBetaTester

Thanks in advance, if you have any questions or queries feel free to fire away.

Enfocus is pleased to announce the release of PitStop Pro 11 Update 2 and PitStop Server 11 Update 2. The new versions offer full compatibility with the latest releases of Microsoft Windows and Adobe Acrobat. In addition, printers and publishers will benefit from improvements to Action List technology usability, to increase automation even more. Both releases also include new value-add features such as Split Pages, as well as improvements to existing functions. The further development of Smart Preflight enables more dynamically-driven workflow functionality, improving productivity and preflight accuracy.

"For our more than 130,000 PitStop users worldwide, this latest update will be welcome news," says Andrew Bailes-Collins, Senior Product Manager at Enfocus. "With this release, we demonstrate our commitment to keeping pace with the newest releases of world-standard software and operating systems. At the same time, we continuously add sought-after features and functionality based on customer input. This is part of our philosophy to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction, and underlines our industry-leading position."

Improved functionality equals greater productivity and fewer errors

These Update 2 releases bring a number of new advantages and efficiencies for users of both PitStop Pro and PitStop Server. "Our objective with these releases is to enhance even more the ability for printers, publishers and designers to quickly and easily fix last-minute file problems, and decrease the amount of manual work required for these professionals to accomplish their day-to-day work," says Bailes-Collins. "Early user feedback has been extremely positive. We are confident our users of PitStop Pro 11 and PitStop Server 11 will enjoy the benefits enabled by this free upgrade."

System support: printers and publishers can now seamlessly deploy the Enfocus solutions as they upgrade their Microsoft environments, with the full support for Windows 8 (for PitStop Pro and PitStop Server) and Microsoft Server 12 (for PitStop Server). PitStop Pro now offers full support for Adobe Acrobat XI Standard and Pro, which will also be highly appreciated by designers.

Split Pages: a new global change in PitStop Pro - also available as an action - allows users to split pages in half, either vertically or horizontally. This is especially useful for designers, printers and publishers who receive PDF files as double page spreads and require a single page for their workflow. This new feature can even be used for de-imposing of completely imposed PDF files.

New predefined Action Lists: three new pre-defined Action Lists - available in PitStop Pro and PitStop Server - make the 'Split Pages in Half' action more efficient, reducing valuable prepress time for printers and publishers. Action Lists encompass the three mostly commonly used page sizes: A4, A5 and US Letter.

Enhanced Preflight Profile Editor: allows users to turn Action Lists off and on from within the Editor, with an easy check-box interface that specifies whether or not an Action List should run. In PitStop Pro, users can now also edit an Action List directly in the Preflight Profile Editor, without the need to export, edit and re-import.

A new, scaled Preflight Report in both PitStop Pro and PitStop Server makes a low resolution version of the report on an A4 page size that can easily be emailed. This will be of particular interest for users with PDF files with very large dimensions, such as those used in large format printing, as the previous annotated reports were too large in size to allow this before.

Smart Preflight for accurate and efficient PDF preflight & correction

Enfocus is continuously extending the power of its Smart Preflight concept, with new functionality that drives productivity even further. When Smart Preflight is used within PitStop Pro, users can now select values to be used within the Preflight Profile or Action List from a user-defined dropdown menu. This is not only a faster way to access these actions, but it allows printers and publishers to eliminate human error and reduce the level of expertise required to engage Smart Preflight.

Variable Sets can now be locked and encrypted, just as Preflight Profiles and Action Lists can be protected in both PitStop Pro and PitStop Server. This protects the Variable Set from being edited or copied. In addition, Action Lists in the Preflight Profile Editor can be controlled by a Boolean variable, making PDF preflighting more dynamic.

Availability

The respective Update 2 releases are immediately available at no charge to existing users of PitStop Pro 11 and PitStop Server 11, as well as users of the more recent Update 1 versions. Both products can be downloaded from the Enfocus website, www.enfocus.com. For more information, users can contact their local reseller or email sales@enfocus.com.

Hi all

We are in the process of investigating new features for future versions of PitStop and would very much like the thoughts and input of our users.

We would like to call you by telephone and discuss some of the ideas for new features that have been put forward by customers, this should take around 15 minutes of your time.

The goal is to see which ideas you think are the most valuable and would benefit you most in your daily business.

We would  also like to hear any thoughts or ideas that you yourself may have for new functionality or improvements to PitStop Pro or Server.

The discussions will take place in English and we  plan to complete them by the end of February.

If you would like to participate please fill out the short form at the following link and specify which days and time would suit you best for the call.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PitStopfeedback

We look forward to talking to you and receiving your input

Hi all,
Customers not embedding fonts in supplied PDF files, is this still a big problem?
If so what do you do to get around it, send the job back, embed the font yourself or change it for another font?