*** From the Archives ***
This article is from March 24, 2009, and is no longer current.
Benchmark: CS4 Live Preflight Increases Your Productivity
A new independent research study conducted by Pfeiffer Consulting has documented that InDesign CS4 Live Preflight and other CS4 features can increase your productivity, efficiency, and return on investment. Commissioned by Adobe, the report documents routine operations in the Adobe Creative Suite 4 that can be accomplished more quickly than in previous versions. For InDesign CS4, the features highlighted were Live Preflight and Smart Guides.
Rufus Deuchler profiled and summarized the results of the benchmark study in his Adobe blog. You can download the report for design professionals from the Adobe website.
In this blog entry, I’ll explain why the InDesign CS4 Live Preflight feature saves you time and makes you more productive. In my next posting, I’ll share some tips and tricks to use the feature most effectively.
In previous versions of InDesign, you can choose File > Preflight open to open the Preflight dialog. You can do some low-level preflighting, like displaying the fonts and graphics used, and fix some production problems. However, there are limits in terms of what you can check for, and the process can’t be customized. Most importantly, it can’t lead you to the problems that need to be fixed, and it doesn’t tell a less experienced user what to do to correct a problem. It is a static and manual process which typically happened at the end of production, if at all.
Live Preflight, by contrast, totally redefines the preflighting process. It’s been moved from a dialog box to the new Preflight panel. By default, the feature now runs continuously in the background, and it alerts you to problems in real time. Plus, it’s totally customizable. The Pfeiffer benchmark report concluded that “locating and fixing document errors with Live Preflight was twice as fast in our tests as compared to the preflight functionality in previous releases.” The chart below, included in the report, shows the time to fix errors in CS4 (yellow) as compared with CS3 (gray)?the shorter bars indicate faster performance.
Live Preflight in InDesign CS4 is turned on by default. A red or green dot appears at the bottom of the document window, along with a message of the number of errors detected. By default, Live Preflight uses the [Basic] profile which only finds certain basic problems?specifically, missing and modified graphics, missing fonts, and overset text. To have it check for other potential problems, you’ll need to create your own preflight profile, or acquire one from your printer.
Double-clicking on the message area at the bottom of your document window opens the Preflight panel (or choose Window > Output > Preflight). In the Preflight panel (shown below), error messages are displayed, based on the current preflight profile being used. If you click the disclosure triangles on the left, all the errors are displayed. If you click on an error the Info section at the bottom explains the error, and (for the less sophisticated user) explains what can be done to fix the error. To the right of an error a link appears. Clicking on the link jumps you to the error.
Live Preflight acts dynamically and continuously: When you fix an error, the problem drops off the list! This makes it a quick and effective way to detect production problems that will slow down getting your work done successfully. The key is how you set up the preflight profile itself: We’ll cover that in the next episode.
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I work for a commercial printer and we just love Live Preflight. We have seen how Live Preflight can save both TIME and MONEY and encourage all our customers to upgrade to CS4.
I’ll second that. Live preflight saved me from a Trapping/Overprint disaster!
Dear Adobe, Live preflight should be made available as plug-in for CS3 users as well, but for many reasons I trust it will be only a dream…
Well I guess I’m the only one that’s glad Live Preview is turned off my default. I’m sure it’s a big help for the novice user but for the experienced user? No thanks. It tries to replicate what Instant PDF and Markzware did eight years ago: educate users.
I’ve yet to actually use it, though I’m sure it’s not because I don’t make a lot of mistakes but simply because that tiny green or red dot at the bottom of the screen isn’t in a place it’s easily spotted.
However, if that dot could be put on the preflight panel while it’s collapsed ? replacing or on top of the preflight panel’s icon? ? it might actually get noticed and therefore used.
I really like the Live Preflight. It’s a great help. I work with layered files and like how if you turn off one layer it won’t include those errors. This feature and Tabs are fantastic. I could go for a Tabs plugin for CS3 since I do have to use that program sometimes as well.
Much as I think it is really useful I have also turned it off! It was causing InDesign to hang: I’m not sure what was the exact cause but it was always when working on a colleagues files that contained large linked files, usually RGB, and in odd formats like png. Turning off Live Preflight allowed me to continue working on those files (replacing the offending links!).
@Simon
Got a similar problem and solved it this way. I set up several profiles which I run consecutive when the very final stage of my work has been reached.
i.e.
a) color
b) overprint
c) resolution
d) links
I do not embed any profile.
I only keep one profile running during my entire work – a text profile, only overset is marked. Work runs like a charm. Nothing hangs.
The Ad Creation department for the Regional Newspaper Group for which I work produces over 5000 newspaper adverts a week. We work with an Ad Tracking system which delivers a blank InDesign template of the correct size to the designer. I have embedded a Newsprint Preflight Profile into each template which is seriously reducing the amount of errors that have to be trapped later.
Further to this, I have scripted a custom menu item which gives users a one click export of the final artwork into the production system. The script only allows this export if there are No Errors in the preflight check, otherwise it gives a warning message to fix the preflight error and try again.
The designers love the Smart Guides too.
I’ve seen how nice the live preflight is or should be, but how come it just doesn’t work in my CS4? It’s on and should check all the documents, but all I see is “checking” with gray dot on and when I want to adjust the prefligt options the program shuts down.. it totally collapses.
Thank you for perhaps the most level headed thing I have read today. Thanks for the info, you made it easy to understand. By the way, if anyone is facing a problem of filling CA Filming Permit Application, I’ve found a template here https://goo.gl/wR85O1. You also can design the form and fax it.