Taming the Wild PDF within the In-Plant Printer

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1 White Paper Page 1/5 Taming the Wild PDF within the In-Plant Printer A White Paper by Michael Reiher The Challenges of Getting Good Files from a Diverse User Base Many in-plant printers face challenges on a daily basis when it comes to getting printready files from their user base. Typically, internal customers can range from seasoned graphic artists using professional applications such as Adobe InDesign to general office users sending in Microsoft Publisher and Word documents as well as PowerPoint slide decks for print. Adobe s PDF (Portable Document Format) format was supposed to be the answer to many print-related problems. However, with the diversity in user skills and wide range of software and platforms being used, PDF still falls victim to the garbage in garbage out rule. To make matters worse, just because someone is a graphic artist and is using a professional-level application doesn t insure the supplied file is ready to go. There are still many settings that can confuse designers or elements they can forget to include in the PDFs sent for print that require additional correction and proofing cycles to correct before a job can go to print. With such a variety of users having access to page layout applications, the overall print readiness of the files received is always in question especially if the job is going to be printed offset or will require additional finishing after printing. This is causing more review and correction cycles resulting in delays that exasperate customers in today s manic business climate. Not only are there additional proofing cycles, but this often entails more direct support to end-users as they don t fully understand printing, PDF creation terminology or the applications they re using. So, how can your organization solve PDF quality issues? How can you tame your wild PDFs? Let s take a look at some approaches along with the benefits and drawbacks of each. End-User Training End-user training has been a staple activity in the industry since the beginning of desktop publishing and, today, it s become even more important as the end-clients become less prepress savvy and technology have paved the way for anyone to create a layout for print. Today, many of the topics that should be covered are technical in nature due to our reliance on computers and a variety of software that can be used for layout creation. However, because many users lack technical knowledge of how desktop publishing

2 White Paper Page 2/5 works, they are also likely to be ignorant of basic graphic arts terms such as bleed or color models such as CMYK. Training professionals stress that you must take into account your lowest common denominator or least-skilled user when designing a training program. Given the diversity of end-user knowledge, this means you ll be covering subjects from simple layout guidelines, limitations of different layout packages to more advanced topics such as how to allow for bleeds in a layout and when you need to do this. Here s a good sample outline of topics that should be covered: Printing Basics: An overview of different print technologies used, finishing and binding capabilities along with a tour of the shop; Design Basics for Print: A overview of things to consider when using different applications for page layout and the limitations of each; Preparing jobs for print: This is where you can focus on the details that will help jobs print easily and things that will cause bad results or stop the printing process. How the training is provided is also just as important. Of course, not everyone may be physically located at the same facility as the print shop and within large corporations, may not even be within the same state. In cases where access to end-users varies, consider holding regular group webinars and offer one-on-one virtual training to those who will be regular customers. You can also consider recording the training sessions and making them available to end users to view at their leisure. Pros and Cons of Training The pros are obvious. The more you can help users become more print-savvy, the better the quality of jobs you re going to receive and the less production will be slowed down with corrections and review cycles or, worse yet, costly reprints. The primary con to training is, it s a never-ending task. There s always a turnover in staff causing trained clients to leave and new, novice customers to arrive. Plus, history shows that many end-users don t retain most of what s taught, especially if they don t have any graphic arts background, so you ll be training many of the same people over and over again. Publish a Specification Publishing a guide and specifications is a must have for any printer. By having a written guide (or even some web pages) that helps explain how to prepare layouts for print, and the settings required for printing, most of the graphic arts savvy clients will be able to review the information and know what to do. However, with less knowledgeable clients, terminology can quickly confuse the reader, which will most likely result in phone calls and s with their questions. A good published print guidelines and specification should include: Recommended layout applications and any that are not accepted; Technical layout specifications such as color models, image resolution, font do s and don ts and bleed requirements;

3 White Paper Page 3/5 How to create a print ready PDF along with recommended settings; and, Common pitfalls to avoid when creating PDFs, such as Save as PDF from the Mac OSX print dialog box or using one of the many of the free PDF converters on the internet, all of which create problems. One way to help all level of users is to leverage a web site and place video tutorial throughout the written specifications. Videos and recorded training sessions will help some users by being able to visualize what you re trying to tell them. Implement a Web-to-Print Solution Web-to-print solutions offer the end user a great way to make simple layouts on-line as well as upload their existing jobs in a consistent and controlled manner. One of the key benefits with a web-to-print solution is you can offer many template products such as business cards, newsletters, flyers and more. With on-line, templated products, the web-to-print system has full control over the layout and quality of the assets used in the design, providing a print-ready file every time. In addition to better quality files a web-to-print portal will also include job ticketing automatically provide user and job information along with the job that can be used for billing, or workflow automation in production. The downside to a web-to-print solution is cost. Initial investments can range from under $1,000 to well over $20,000 or more. Plus, many providers of pre-made Web-toprint solutions sell them as a software as a service (SaaS) model adding to monthly expense budgets. There s also a fair amount of time needed to set up the storefront and catalog of templated products. A New Approach Training, webinars, phone support, published specifications, all have limited results and all require the end user to learn and retain the information provided to create and deliver a print ready file. Not an ideal situation for a print service provider. Within the recent years new solutions have been introduced to help print service providers get control of their incoming file quality. Preflight services like those provided by Enfocus PitStop Server integrated with a webto-print solution can help identify problem PDF files as they are submitted and even correct many common problems. Preflighting PDFs has become a staple service with many print and workflow automation solutions. However, the drawback to preflighting after files has been received is the external customers still need support, training and continual education to help them provide a file that s even close to the standards needed for print production. And not all problems can be fixed with preflighting software, resulting in the need to contact the customer, explain the problem and have them fix and resubmit the file. In a perfect world, when a customer has a layout ready to be sent to printing, a knowledgeable production specialist would magically show up, take over the customer s computer, make a few final adjustments and then create a print-ready PDF and submit it for the customer. Then you d be assured that the files received are ready for print.

4 White Paper Page 4/5 Without teleportation technology, or having a large staff that can do one-on-one, onsite support, this is not very realistic at all. But the good news is, technology is here that can provide these same capabilities. Enfocus has developed an application called Connect ALL that addresses this issue. Using Connect ALL, print service providers pre-define all the settings for job tickets, PDF creation, PDF preflight/correction and final job delivery. All these settings get bundled into an app called a Connector, which can be installed on either a Windowsor Mac-based computer. Connectors can be freely distributed to as many internal and external clients as desired. When a customer needs to send in a job for print, all they do is select the Connector (which can have a custom name like Send for Print ) just as if it were a network printer from the Print menu, or drag and drop files onto the Connector icon. From there, the Connector takes over production and submission, as all the settings are pre-defined and the user needs to know nothing about PDF creation, or where to deliver a file to have the in-plant print it. There are several advantages to this method: No technical training required; No confusion over PDF creation settings; No network drive locations, or web sites or FTP servers to remember or log into; Everything is delivered consistently and the print service provider is automatically notified of the job delivery with job ticket information. With products like Connect ALL, even users who are using products such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint can create and deliver print-ready PDFs with no formal training or understanding of print requirements. Also, with PDF preflighting and corrections happening on the client side, common graphic arts errors are more easily corrected where the file was created and the print service provider is informed when the file arrives if it meets their standards or not. The downside to the Connect ALL solution is you need to distribute the Connectors to end users and you may need to get your IT department involved to help with the distribution. However, this is not necessarily bad news. First, getting the IT department involved in the solution right from the beginning should be an advantage. It will allow them to buy into the problem/solution as well as vet the Connectors for distribution to your clients. Second, Connect ALL has an update function built-in allowing you to use an FTP site, or HTTP site to distribute and update remote Connectors easing on-going maintenance of Connectors as systems update or settings change. In addition to Connect ALL, there are other solutions too that will allow end users to control the PDF creation process, including products such as PDF Creator from PDF Forge, CutePDF and PowerPDF from Nuance. Enfocus, an Enfocus, Esko Company Esko Company info@enfocus.com forum.enfocus.com

5 White Paper Page 5/5 These applications are intended for general office use and are fine for a desktop inkjet or laser printer, but they do not have integrated preflight, job ticketing, or job delivery that can help the in-plant produce a professional print job. To learn more about Enfocus Connect ALL, visit XChange UK today. Michael is Product Manager for North America at Enfocus and brings the North American voice to the Product Management Team in order to deliver even more innovative and valuable solutions to Enfocus customers. Prior to joining Enfocus, Reiher was most recently the Director of Sales and Marketing for Dynagram. He previously held the positions of Senior Product Manager in the Adobe/Aldus Prepress Division at Adobe Systems, Inc.; Director of Marketing and Business Development at Imaging Partners, Inc.; General Manager at LizardTech, Inc.; Director of Marketing at Imation Publishing Software (Luminous Corp.); and Marketing Manager at Moore Corp., Interactive Marketing Solutions.