United Litho, Inc.


		Volume 4, Issue 3 Going With The Flow Are You Ready? A PDF Readiness Assessment Employee Profile: Rebecca Hoeckele, Making Production Painless TechTips: Free Software and Fun Sites Going With The Flow A lot of people are talking about PDF—the Portable Document Format workflow that allows design files to go directly from desktop to print—but what are the facts beyond the hype? Should your publication be using PDF to print, or is a more “classic” printing method the best for you? And if you decide to use PDF, how can you prepare yourself and your staff for this new method of printing? “Education is the key,” says United Litho Technical Support Representative and Trainer Andrew Moore. “With enough testing and education, PDF can be very successful.” But it’s not for everyone, cautions Prepress Production Manager JoAnne Bland. “Although some of our clients send us application files, with occasional PDF files for ads, most publishers are not comfortable sending an entire publication to print without seeing a proof.” That’s right: no proof. Although United Litho has its own internal quality control and plate proofs, clients in this workflow will not see anything but the finished product, unless a problem arises. “We want to make sure our output matches what the client sends us on their laser printouts, what they expect it to look like,” Bland says. “And if we recognize a problem, we hold the job to correct any issues we see.” That hold-up can mean time and money in unanticipated corrections, however. “The goal of the PDF workflow is to submit a job and be finished,” says Bland. Digital Prepress Coordinator Ron Moore agrees. “People go to this workflow to get a faster job turnaround and to eliminate prepress costs. Last-minute corrections defeat the purpose on both counts.” A Matter of Process The lack of a proofing stage may be intended to save time and money in the long run, but it involves a steep learning curve and increased responsibility for ensuring proper results. “The customer takes on the full responsibility for the job printing correctly when they send us a PDF file,” says Ron Moore, noting that for customers new to the process, errors commonly occur with file distillation, font management and color management, among others. Because only limited editing capabilities are available for PDF files, clients need to make sure they have not only applied sound design standards in their native application, but that they have distilled their files properly into PDF. “Once a file is distilled, our potential for helping the job get through quickly and easily is reduced, should any problems arise,” Ron Moore says. “If we discover a problem in a PDF file, we ask the client for a replacement PDF,” explains Bland. “That way, we’re not spending unscheduled hours making corrections, and our clients have the opportunity to learn how to create a perfect PDF file for printing.” Bland’s point emphasizes Andrew Moore’s words on education. “We have posted our distiller guidelines on the United Litho Website,” he says. “These requirements must also go on to our clients’ advertisers.” “Clients need to educate their advertisers to send ads in the proper format,” echoes Ron Moore, adding that even the ULI guidelines don’t cover every variable. “Page sizes may vary, and that can affect page imposition and templates.” Other problems that may arise in the PDF workflow include font management, color management and specifications such as bleeds and page sizes. Although Andrew Moore encourages the use of good pre-flight software, such as Markzware’s FlightCheck, Ron Moore also warns against complacency. “It won’t necessarily catch everything,” he says. “You can’t expect consistent results without doing your homework and testing your output again and again.” Bland agrees. “We have one client who is using the PDF workflow on a regular basis, and they’re successful mostly because of the hard work they’ve put in with Andrew and Ron to test their output and troubleshoot the issues they’ve had,” she says. Are you ready to take the plunge? Here’s a comparison of the “United Litho Classic” workflow with the “United Litho PDF” workflow: United Litho Classic Workflow Disks are downloaded in United Litho’s pre-flight department, where staff run a pre-flight check. In the meantime, the job coordinator looks at the lasers that accompany the digital files, makes sure the lasers are marked for color and makes note of advertising specifications. The lasers go on to the pre-flight department, where staff verify that there’s a file for each element on the lasers (including graphics and fonts). The files go on to the account manager, who creates an imposition and addresses any pre-flight issues that may have arisen. The digital operator receives the files and checks for bleeds, traps, pickups and any other missing items. Once any issues are resolved, the pages are then ripped and imposed. The imposed book-style HP color proof is sent to the client for approval. The client orders any corrections that are needed. New proof pages are produced and faxed to the client, unless changes were numerous or complicated enough to warrant sending another color proof. Once approved by the client, the imposed forms are sent to the print driver and to the platesetter. “While these steps are going on, there are a lot of smaller work orders being processed,” explains Bland. “These are more administrative tasks that ensure all the right pieces come together at the right time.” United Litho PDF Workflow Files are downloaded in the pre-flight department, where staff check them for readiness. The files go on to the account manager, who creates the imposition. The digital operator receives the files, imposes the pages and sends them to the print driver for platesetting. A plate proof is created for staff to check against the laser printout sent with the files before releasing the files to the press. “If there is an error, we can stop the process,” says Bland. “But we can’t always recognize a problem exists.” She cites an example where a client’s file had an obvious font substitution of Courier. “That was a conspicuous error that we caught, but what if it had been a more subtle substitution? We wouldn’t necessarily know that the printed font wasn’t the intended one.” Back to top Are You Ready? United Litho has also developed the following readiness assessment. Before deciding to go the PDF route, answer these questions to see if this method is right for you. Are you and your staff comfortable sending a job to print without seeing proofs? Are you currently sending back your blueline proofs with no author’s alterations (AAs)? Do you have adequate staff and software support for pre-flighting files in-house (like Markzware’s FlightCheck)? Are all of your advertisers submitting ads as digital files (not film-based or PDF files)? “Film-based ads don’t eliminate you from the PDF workflow,” says Andrew Moore. “But it takes time for us to scan in the film and digitize, so you won’t really reap the time-saving benefits.” Are you including all screen and printer fonts in the files you send to United Litho? Do you have a full version of Adobe Acrobat in house, to create and distill PDF files? Do you have a high comfort level with doing file management, color management and proofreading in-house? Are you comfortable with minor color variations between monitor color (RGB) and the printed product (CMYK)? Are you consistently using standards of good design at the application level (in the native files), as established in the United Litho client handbook? Are your files relatively simple in color usage, either black-and-white or CMYK, without the use of PMS spot colors? If you’ve answered “yes” to all these questions, then it may be time to explore the PDF workflow with your United Litho account representative. But if you answered “no” to some of them, or weren’t sure of your answers, the classic workflow may still be the best route for you. Back to top Employee Profile: Rebecca Hoeckele, Making Proteus Painless Late last year, United Litho began offering its customers a powerful tool called Proteus, a software package that automates the publication process from initial planning to page imposition. With free installation, training and ongoing technical support, it’s a significant benefit. But perhaps the biggest benefit is the power behind the tool—Rebecca Hoeckele. As United Litho’s Proteus liaison and trainer, she’s much more than a software instructor. ULI customers are finding that her 20 years’ experience in magazine publishing, combined with her extensive knowledge of the Proteus product, is helping them dramatically slash their publication production time. Since Hoeckele joined United Litho more than a year ago, she’s completed 15 Proteus installations—each one a unique success story. In fact, Hoeckele notes that while Proteus can be a tremendous help for those who are struggling, it can be even more beneficial to those on top of their game. “They’re discovering how much more they can accomplish with the right tools,” she says. One client has reduced its rounds of dummy revisions per issue from 10 or more to about two or three. In this particular environment, multiple salespeople are reviewing the dummies, and Proteus is helping them identify—and satisfy—advertisers’ placement requests much earlier in the process. Another client, production manager Beth Moorman at National Glass Association, has discovered that the way Proteus manages information and creates reports has had a ripple effect well beyond the advantages of streamlining the dummy process. “It also encompasses most, if not all, of the ancillary functions I need to perform once the dummy is complete, such as calculating the ad/editorial ratio, calculating the paid/non-paid ad ratio, calculating the weight of the issue and capturing the data for the ad index,” she says. The Painless Process It’s at the prep and training stages where Hoeckele’s long publishing background most comes into play. “I know what the end product should look like to be really useful,” she says. “So I focus each training session on a central question: ‘How can Proteus be most beneficial to this particular staff?’ A good portion of our training is actually more consultative—‘What does your workflow look like now, and how can we tweak Proteus to fit that workflow as seamlessly as possible?’” The result is that the transition from a paper-based planning workflow to a Proteus-based one is virtually painless. “Having spent so many years in their shoes, I’m never going to come in and demand that our customers adapt to Proteus. Instead, I help them understand how to shape Proteus to match their existing workflow very, very closely.” For the customer, the best part of the training is that Hoeckele schedules it to start with the production of a “live issue.” Unlike some software training classes, these are not based on hypotheticals. “At the end of the training,” she says, “the client has produced an actual issue, tackling real-life challenges, and can see the benefits of Proteus right away.” Another plus for clients is that the training is very much hands-on. In fact, after the first day of training, Hoeckele says she’s out of the driver’s seat, placing staff members at the controls to accomplish their own tasks. The Inside Scoop In addition to her client experience with Proteus, Hoeckele functions as a Proteus beta tester, working closely with the Proteus product support manager and chief software engineer at printCafe to thoroughly test new releases of the program before passing them onto to ULI clients. “I’m the gatekeeper between printCafe and our customers,” she says, and it’s a responsibility she takes very seriously. “Everyone using Proteus is using it on deadline—and no one has the time to be surprised by it. I want to be able to tell my customers, ‘You can trust us—what we’re giving you is reliable, and it will make your life easier.’” Both Proteus and Hoeckele’s experience have simplified life for National Glass’s Moorman. “I wouldn’t have learned Proteus as quickly as I did or had such successful attempts had Rebecca not been the one teaching it.” Best of all, Moorman says, is Hoeckele’s tailored approach. “She’s been in our shoes…she knows the pressures we’re having to deal with to keep advertisers and editors happy. Anybody can learn software,” she continues. “Rebecca can bridge the gap and apply it to everyday applications.” Back to top TechTips: Free Software and Fun Sites October 29, 2001, is fast approaching, and I’m willing to bet that a lot of people in prepress production will open their documents only to have some of their graphics show up as modified—even though they’re certain that they have not touched the files. Why? October 29 is the day after the end of Daylight Savings Time, and if some computers in a networked environment are not updated, the result is an apparent “modification” of certain files. Actually, this problem can happen at any time during the year if the date/time settings on a single computer are significantly different from other computers on the network. So, how can you avoid this? Macintosh users have a built-in feature that lets them use a network time server (go to Control Panel > Date and Time) to automatically set the clock precisely via an Internet connection. PC users should check out TimeRC, an excellent free utility that works with almost every version of Windows out there. Ever wonder what hardware you have in your computer? Here are a couple of free software programs that will help you determine whether or not your system meets specific hardware requirements such as CPU speed and RAM. Mac Users: Mactracker provides detailed information on every Mac ever made, including processor speed, memory and expansion options; specs for Apple displays, as well as inkjet and laser printers, are also included. It also sports a built-in update engine to ensure that the database is always up to date. Get it here. PC Users: SiSoftware’s SANDRA (System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information and diagnostic utility that provides detailed information on your hardware and software. Check it out here. Mac users will want to check out the Default Folder utility from St. Clair Software. It greatly expands what you can do in dialog boxes by setting up default directories, allowing you to click on greyed-out file names in dialog boxes and enabling you to navigate to other windows that appear on the screen. The $25 registration fee is well worth it. Get more information here. Both Mac and PC users can benefit from three basic laws of computers that I’ve found to be true over the years: If it doesn‘t need upgrading, don‘t do it. Put another way: If it works, don’t fix it. Never plug or unplug anything from a computer that is on, with the exception of USB or firewire peripherals, which were designed for it. If you simply can't afford to lose a file, back it up, and do it often! Finally, all work and no play? Check out this series of online videos featuring floating skulls and boiling-hot coffee. Back to top Copyright 1997 - 2008, United Litho, Inc. All rights reserved.