Preflighting For Creatives

FlightCheck is Markzware’s next-generation, stand-alone intelligent preflight application. This unique quality control tool inspects and analyzes colors, fonts, images & more, in both PDF and several desktop publishing document types. FlightCheck has no required dependencies. This means external applications or plug-ins are not required to run this software. It is complete with Inventory and Packaging functionality to ensure print-ready documents. FlightCheck offers a preview, as well as a thorough analysis and inspection of your desktop publishing (DTP) file content. Preflight Reports can be fully customized with your company information and logo and then exported as HTML, JSON, RTF, TXT or XML, directly into most automated workflows. FlightCheck provides added value for creatives, graphic designers, and print production specialists seeking an easy-to-use preflighting tool for onboarding document production jobs. This affordable prepress system will preflight a variety of formats, including Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, PDF, QuarkXPress, and several image types, to help ensure error-free document production. Another benefit of FlightCheck is that it creates a complete, compressed package, so you can send files with all elements of the job for sharing, printing, or archiving. This is extremely convenient for a customer service representative preparing job quotes, or even complete graphic design departments looking to preflight and archive years of work, for content sustainability. FlightCheck users can also visit the cloud-based MarkzPortal, Markzware’s SaaS solution to convert desktop publishing files online.

Supported File Types

One of the key capabilities of FlightCheck is its power to preflight file formats and image types of a wide variety. A partial list includes:

• Adobe InDesign
• Adobe Illustrator
• Adobe Photoshop
• PDF (Portable Document Format)
• QuarkXPress

In-Depth Inventory

The Inspector Widgets provide a high-level overview of the document. At a glance, you can see which file type, which version, and when the document was last modified. Is it intended for print, mobile, or web? How many pages and spreads are included? Are there any missing or inactive used fonts? Are there missing or embedded images Continue with the Inventory View, for a thorough analysis of the document contents. Detailed file, page, and print information is displayed. View all of the job images, both linked and embedded, alongside all of their important details (e.g., type, color mode, resolution, …). You can also see detailed color, page, and font information.

Intelligent Ground Controls

FlightCheck has Ground Controls, which flag a plethora of items in categories, such as File, PDF, Document, Print, Colors, Fonts, Images, and more! Adobe announced that they will drop support for both PANTONE colors and PostScript Type 1 Fonts. This causes new issues, to which FlightCheck will alert users. Markzware has included the following Ground Controls:

• Fonts that are Type 1
• Used PANTONE colors not supported by Adobe
• Images that use ICC Profiles Override.

Collect And Package

FlightCheck excels at collecting and packaging required job elements, ensuring you have everything needed for the next step in your workflow. Packaged items include:

• Original DTP file (INDD, QXP, PDF, AI, …)
• Exported PDF file
• Converted IDML file*
• Linked Images
• Extracted Embedded Images
• Used Fonts
• Inventory Report (as HTML, TXT, RTF, JSON, or XML)
• Package Report (as HTML, TXT, RTF, JSON, or XML)

White Label FlightCheck Reports

FlightCheck even offers white-label capability for print shops and publishers worldwide to become affiliates, so they can provide this added value, along with their corporate identity and logo, to their customers.

Integrates With Automated Workflows

With Automation Preferences, AppleScript support, and a Custom URL Scheme, FlightCheck will have no problem integrating into most automated workflows.

Automation With FlightCheck

Following are examples of how FlightCheck helps you to automate tasks!

Open And Report

Set up FlightCheck to automatically create an Inventory Report. Choose where the Report will be saved, how to handle duplicate file names, and the 3rd party application to open the Report.

Open And Package

FlightCheck can be configured to automatically Package files. Specific settings allow you to choose how the Package is created.

Build A Custom Workflow

Workflows can be configured, with a simple Automator Folder Action, to do things like watching a Hot Folder for new files, automatically creating an HTML Inventory Report, and emailing it to your document production department using Apple Mail.