Preflight check

Advertising customers, agencies and partner publishers are supplying more and more data in digital format. This data often fails to meet the levels of quality required for the printing process. And, in some cases, it is not even possible to process the data. Early checking allows data of insufficient quality to be identified in good time so that data of a better quality can be requested.

The DIALOG Preflight Check feature allows publishers to check data as early on as the import stage. The data is then automatically corrected, depending on the errors that have been found. No expensive external tools are required for this.

The check is run centrally on a service server or an appropriate workstation. Different checks are saved for the individual import directories. EPS files may also be checked in the file system.

During the preflight check, DIALOG checks all imported PDF and EPS files for the following properties:

General check: Postscript errors, device-specific Postscript, maximum number of dictionaries, memory depth and requirements and the maximum number of path points.

Font check: Font used not available, use of Courier, use of a font not managed by DIALOG font management, incomplete font.

Image check: Maximum and minimum resolution of greyscales and colour images, RGB image occurrence and use of OPI comments.

Colour check: Use of undefined additional colours, different colour combination to that defined in DIALOG, number of additional colours used, maximum tonal value.

It is also possible to preview the supplied PDF and EPS files and embed the fonts:

Generating TIFF previews: To eliminate missing or incorrect preview data, a new preview can be generated from an image’s fine-grain data that is then embedded in the image.

Font inclusion: Fonts from a specified font folder are embedded so that fonts missing at the exposure stage are not substituted with replacement fonts.

Individual check profiles can be used to decide the following for each point: Whether to ignore the mistake, issue a warning or generate an error message and interrupt processing.