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		What is preflighting? Who is responsible for preflighting a job? What are the most common problems encountered inadequate preflighting? Which preflighting checklist should I use? 1  Delivery media? 2  File formats? 3  Page settings? 4  Supply all files? 5  Fonts? 6  RGB, CMYK? 7  Bleed? 8  Proofs? 9  Labelling?
		Designers and printers, email us details of your own knowledge and good habits to be added to the Q&As of our website!
	TO TOP	What is preflighting?
		Preflighting is a term borrowed from the checklist procedures pilots use before taking off. It is a way of making sure digital files will image correctly and will not crash the RIP when they are output to film. It is a way of discovering problems before they tie up prepress personnel, materials and equipment. Preflighting is a process for thoroughly analysing a designed digital job for output readiness, regardless of the intended output device. It is a way to discover incomplete or missing digital files and fonts, improper or ignored trapping, inadequate bleeds, wrong page sizes, incorrect colour breakdowns, extraneous elements, potential banding problems or jagged images before a job is output. Font problems alone, considered the most troublesome aspect of proper output, justify preflighting. The preflighting process can involve software or checklists or both.
	TO TOP	Who is responsible for preflighting a job?
		Formal preflighting takes time and Reprographics must charge for this service. It is advised that you do this yourself by following our essential preflighting checklist prior to delivery of the job.
	TO TOP	What are the most common problems encountered from inadequate preflighting?
		•  Missing or corrupted fonts •  Image trapping •  Banding •  Incomplete or corrupt files •  Excessive sizing/rotating of EPS,TIFF files in the page layout •  Spot colours not converted to 4-colour process or vice versa •  Nesting files which cause poor output •  4-colour TIFF files not converted from RGB to CMYK mode •  Inadequate bleeds •  Unusable disks
	TO TOP	Which preflighting checklist do you advise me to follow?
		1  Delivery media?
		Can we read your media? We are able to use floppy disks, 100 mbyte zip and 1 gig jaz cartridges, 44 mbyte, 88 mbyte and 200 mbyte syquest cartridges, dat tapes and/or cd-roms. Be sure to lock your disks and send only the files which are needed for output. Do not send the only copy of your files to Repros! Always have at least one backup copy. We can also process an emailed job. However with current average communication speeds, do not email a job that is larger than 3 megabytes after being compressed. We cannot offer you fast turn around on large emailed jobs that tie up the modem for hours. If you still insist on emailing a large job, please break the job up into more than one compressed file so that a faulty download means that we have only a part of the job to download again.
	TO TOP	2  File formats?
		Make sure that the format you send is compatible with our computer system. We are able to handle the following native file formats: FOR MAC Pagemaker versions 5, 6, 6.5 QuarkXpress versions 3, 3.3, 4 Illustrator versions 5, 6, 7, 8,9 Photoshop versions 4, 5,5.5 Freehand versions 7, 8 Word version 8 Indesign 1.5 Acrobat 4 PDF FOR PC CorelDraw version 8-9 Publisher 97,98,2000 Word version 6 Photoshop version 5 Pagemaker version 6.5 Illustrator version 8
	TO TOP	3  Page settings?
		Make sure your pages are set properly for the output device. These options include page dimensions, page orientation, margins, bleed requirements, trapping etc.
	TO TOP	4  Supply all files?
		It is essential to provide a hard copy proof of the jobs along with the electronic files, plus all the fonts, all the linked files and the page layout document. Graphics that are missing may remain visible on the computer monitor, but will output in low resolution and look pixelised. Indicate which low-resolution images need to replaced with high-resolution images by Repros. You should not provide a postscript page layout file if we are able to read the native format.
	TO TOP	5  Fonts?
		It is preferable to supply screen and printer fonts to guarantee accurate output.
	TO TOP	6  RGB, CMYK?
		Your images may print black and white or with unacceptable colour shifts and strange trapping if you do not convert all files to CMYK. Make sure that you use CMYK for all spot colours in process colour jobs. This of course does not apply to 5 or 6 colour print work.
	TO TOP	7  Bleed?
		Make sure all bleeds extend beyond the edge of the page to your printers' requirements. The industry standard is 3mm. Extending your bleeds is easy do in a page layout program, but can be time consuming and costly for Repros to do.
	TO TOP	8  Proofs?
		Send a black and white laser print or colour print with the job. If you send your files via modem, be sure to fax a laser print-out as a proof as well. Make sure that you generate your proof from the same set of files that you are sending to Repros. If the job dimensions are so large that you cannot proof same size, indicate the reduction % on the proof. Black and white proofs should have coloured elements clearly labeled.
	TO TOP	9  Labelling?
		Label every part of the job: lists, disks, proofs etc so that displaced bits can be easily identified. Also send us a preflight checklist of everything being sent.
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