The Printing Preflight Process

Something that is an important part of the printing process is preflight. It helps us remember what needs to be done before we do any printing.Preflighting helps us catch any errors we may have made while creating our projects before they are printed. It also saves us valuable time and money.

An example of a preflight checklist may include:

• Does the physical size of the layout match the specifications?
• Are all the page elements there?
• Are the fonts supplied or embedded correctly?
• Is there sufficient resolution for the chosen output?
• How many colors are supposed to print?
• Are spot colors listed consistently?

These are not the only questions you should ask yourself before sending your file off to print. Double check all of the requirements of the file and make sure everyone has what they need to make things run smoothly.

One job that will require you to use a printing preflight checklist is the Preflight Technician. Their job is to load the customer's files onto the pre-press server. They also have to check the customer's files for completeness and potential problems. Another part of their job is to check for any missing components and make the customer aware of them. The average salary for a preflight technician is around $48,000.

I found this information at DTPHints, GraphicCommCentral, Talk Print, and Simply Hired.

Information source: http://www.dtphints.com/softwaretips/preflighting-for-success-use-checklists and http://blog.printingcenterusa.com/tag/preflight-process/