One of the biggest dilemmas in prepress is the belief that any PDF is a perfect PDF. Most designers and Ad people think that the term High Res PDF or Print quality PDF is OK. AFAIK, there are still only 2 industry standard PDFs X1A and X4.
You can argue about any other variants but the professional print industry is slow to change. Adobe's attempt to change Illustrators native file format not withstanding.

A client who insists on using Quark should still be obligated to supply a prepress capable PDF, or accepts the way you make it work.

Flightcheck software, IMHO, was always a convenience but you had to know how it worked, what it was checking and what it was reporting. Seems obvious but many grapohic design groups I follow are filled with threads that read "I'm new to this, Is there a script or plugin that will do the job I am being pay to do without learning anything?"

When I started at my last agency, the 2 people I would end up replacing told me that the red flags that showed in the report were just warnings and the printer would fix them... in a PDF X1A... and these were the prepress people.

Almost everything the preflight reports can be easily found in Indesign's Pallets if you know where to look. Preflight software is a big strainer that can catch a lot but knowledge is your best friend. It should be your best asset as this industry dumbs down...

The original job Title is "Creative Design Specialist"...

Hardly a well used industry term, that way they don't adhere to industrial salary expectations.

The big ad agency I used to work for (who packaged out most of the staff when the prospect of a global shut down spooked all our clients into cutting advertising) has just posted on a facebook group that they are looking for 5 JR. Creatives... No details.

Seems a lot of Millennials with no self esteem are jumping on these and begging to be considered. Obviously the agency wants young desperates who won't know how cheap and ungrateful the ad world is...

I'll go ahead and assume that is a place holder, better that than when they list for $55,000 and then figure someone will take it for $45,000 or less.

Probably won't hear from them but what the hell, I had nothing better to do today.

Thought that looked familiar, I think I just threw a resume at it. We will see...

Steven Colbert called them "2 colors or snow you shouldn't eat"!

There are lots of ads for Graphic people here in Toronto, but most have unrealistic expectations and are offered as entry level salaries. I assume they believe there is a large number of talent that is desperate to work for nothing.

The manager who downsized all the knowledge and talent at my last shop, was let go last week and is looking for sympathy...

http://www.jklstudios.com/misc/osxfonts.html

Kurt Lang has kept up to date on Fonts so we don't have to.
His white paper has been my bible for decades.

Quote from: scottrsimons on December 10, 2019, 08:44:02 AM
Fonts, are how you really know a seasoned Prepress operator. Ask them about fonts, and sit back and listen. If they don't stand on a soap box  for at least 5-10 minutes, they haven't been in the "oven" long enough. Time to throw'em back in for a while.

Hell, I can do 25 minutes on Apple's System Helveticas alone... Don't get me started....

Glad we could help...

If you are never going to get the original file, You can copy the content of the image box, Go to Photoshop - create a new file - (it should open to the dimensions of your copied data and paste. Save as a new image, convert to CMYK. (Your milage may vary and you get what you get.

Triple bill the time it took..or you will be doing it again, and again, and again... cause you know how to do it so it is easy...

My understanding is that much like JPEG, the format itself is not an issue in and of itself. If it is CMYK and high enough resolution, Indesign will rip separations. (It will also rip separations from low res RGB PNGs too but you'll get what you get.)

The issue is that almost all PNGs and JPEGs were or are intended for web use and to prepress people are a huge RED FLAG that the Deziner is lazy or ignorant of prepress standards. Maybe that is all they have, maybe thats all they know. I just take extra care and make someone sign off on the results...

As one who just put his eldest into college, enjoy every moment... 18 years goes by on a heart beat. Congratulations...