Performing a Pre-Work Check
I had the opportunity the other day to open a file sent to me by someone I don’t know. I realized that I went through a few ingrained procedures that I usually do when I open a strange file.
I also realized that this is a good list of things to go through for anyone who needs to work on someone else’s file. I call this a Pre-Work Check.
(Note: These steps don’t have to be followed in the exact same order although some steps will necessarily follow the others.)
- Ignore any notice that fonts are missing, especially if you’re not going to edit any text. In my case I was looking just at the swatches and separations for the document. I didn’t really need to worry about missing fonts.
- If you do need to handle missing fonts it is better to wait till the document is open and then handle things through Find Font. (Also looking through for any pink higlights for missing fonts.) My reason for this is it is easier to handle missing fonts onces you have scouted through the pages and masters for the document.
- Ignore any notice that images are missing or modified. Once again it is a better to wait until you’ve had a chance to look at the images as well as their status in the Links panel.
- Look in the Links panel for missing or modified links. I like to use the Go to Link command to see exactly what the link is and to watch what happens if I do update the link.
- Open the Pages panel and look through the document. Check out how many pages are in the file. Is this what you expected? Or is a 100-page book missing 99 pages? You might not be working on the right file and can call your client (or co-worker) to find out what’s going on.
- Take a quick look to see if there are any overset symbols. This could be a problem later on although it is not that vital if you do have missing fonts.
- Look at the Swatches panel. Do you see any colors in addition to the default swatches? Do you see colors on the pages that are not in the default swatches. This is a hint that you need to choose the Add Unnamed Colors command to clean up those missing swatches.
- Look at the Paragraph Styles panel. Are there styles defined? Look through them and try to get a handle on the style names. If necessary, click into each type of paragraph element and see if you understand the naming convention.
- Do the same with the Character Styles panel.
- And finally do the same with the Object Styles.
- Check out the master pages for the document. See which masters are applied to what pages. See if some masters are based on others.
- Zoom out from the document and scroll quickly through the pasteboard. Find out what objects are scattered around the pasteboard.
- Look at the Layers panel. If there are multiple layers click them on and off to understand what objects are supposed to go on what layers.
Advanced steps: If this is a document that you need to work with check out the following Preferences to make sure you are comfortable with the preferences:
- Check to see if the apply leading to paragraphs is chosen. I like it off, but would be confused if it were turned on.
- Check to see if the text wrap works downward only option is chosen. I hate that setting but others might turn it on.
I welcome any additional steps from you all!
It is very helpful, to see all these steps listed together. Thanks!
Nice list indeed. Why not also recommend FlightCheck to help with many of these items?
Actually Flight Check doesn’t help you with any of these items with the exceptions of missing fonts and missing/modified links.
The purpose of this Pre-Work Check is to give you an idea of how to become familiar with a strange document that you are going to work on. Whether or not it will print comes much later in the process.
Another cool thing I do after receiving a file from another source is to play around with the Flattener Preview to see how transparent items are already interacting with the other elements on the page.
Neil,
Great addition to the list, but I would first do a check in the Pages panel to look for any checkerboard symbols which indicate transparency.
Then, your idea to check for how the transparency happens is a great one.
Great list! I get a lot of documents that are “ready to print” and then spend a great deal of time making that true. This will help organize while I gripe!
I also check for pasteboard-only, leftover objects, such as text fields and graphics, which might cause missing font or graphic errors. I’m in prepress, so if I’m not likely to need these objects, I can usually make a mental note to delete them to simplify my life.
Even though I agree on checking every element from a document you mention in your text, I respectfully have to disagree on the methods you are using to get there and the comment that FlightCheck Professional only checks for fonts or images. FlightCheck Professional is a stand alone application that will check for hundreds of potential pre-press problems and does so in seconds. In todays printing rooms, or even when creating there is simply no time to check everything with the eyeball method and before a file is prepaired for output, it has to be complete and error free. Once your reach the deadline, there is no time to start communicating with the client about missing fonts, images, colour gamut and the likes. ?Quality is every ones responsibility? Demming said, so why not automate what you can?
The comments I wrote where too long to post here so please download the Word document from here. I hope they are useful.
Arnold,
I appreciate your post and I have read your Word document.
I think you have misunderstood the reason that I posted this Pre-Work Check.
First, the check has nothing to do with output. It is not for the press or service provider who needs to open and output a file.
While FlightCheck is able to handle some of the issues I mentioned, it really is not the right application for what I am trying to accomplish.
First, you have to understand that I posted my list for those who are going to continue to work on someone else’s work — work that they are not familiar with.
The purpose of my list is to help someone familiarize themselves with the project. My suggestion for scrolling through the pages panel has less to do with counting the number of pages than it does with becoming comfortable with the document.
In fact, the very fact that FlightCheck “will not only reveal the number of pages in seconds” makes FlightCheck the wrong application to use.
I don’t want people to speed through the pages, styles, colors, fonts, and images in a document.
My Pre-Work Check is to slow them down so they understand how the document was created.
Next, in your Word document you said “you want to see what happens when an image is modified, but with a missing link the image is just not there.”
That’s not true. There is not a blank space in the frame. There is a proxy image that gives an excellent idea of what the designer or author intended.
Finally, the trouble with your scenario to use FlightCheck is that it doesn’t give the new creator for the document a chance to really navigate around the file.
FlightCheck is excellent for output providers and should actually be done at several steps in the document creation process. But my list is a better idea than FlightCheck.
The analogy I like is the one for someone who might own a home. FlightCheck is an excellent process to go through if you are going to put your house on the market and want to know if there will be any issues when people come to look.
FlightCheck is a excellent process to go through before you go to contract on the sale of a house.
But a Pre-Work Check is the process you want to go through when you rent a house for the summer and want to know where the electric controls are, how to turn on the TV, is there a WiFi system, what’s the password for the system, etc.
Great answer, Sandee! I would also like to second the point that FlightCheck is a wonderful app, but not the tool for this particular job. Also, Arnold does have a slight bias, as he works for Markzware — just so everyone knows who is talking here. ;)
It looks like Arnold may have removed that Word doc; the URL no longer works.
Dear Sandee,
Thank you for your comments on the document (which is available again above). I understand your reasons to get familiar with the document, by cruising around within InDesign, but from a practical point of view, there are tools to assist for this.
I would want to know if the document can be trusted before I put my energy in working with it. To stay in your analogy; it is great to explore the electric controls and the likes, but before you enter the room in a house you just want to make sure you don’t fall through the floor, the roof will come down or that you get electrocuted when you switch on the lights…
I believe that almost all the checks on your list work even better AFTER preflighting the foundations of the document.
Many we know use electronic preflight methods before opening and editing someone else’s work, in prepress and in design/layout – I think that should be made clear.
If the document (that we are “pre-working”) isn’t too long, I would suggest printing it. This gives an idea how the page may “assemble”, margins (or lack of), and possible “non-printing” objects.
Terry, that’s an interesting idea, but I wouldn’t waste the paper. Instead, I just press W a few times on each to turn Preview mode on and off. The before-and-after is a nice way to get a sense for what “disappears” (is non-printing).
Hi. Please, I need the first line that makes ID CS3 to understand the codes in word files. When I work with PageMaker I simply put and then I put in the beginning of each paragraph. It were simply. For long files is the best way work, but I can’t find the line for ID CS3.
Control, I’m not sure, but it sounds as though you are asking about tagged text. I wrote something about that here.
How about “Check the Layers panel to see if you have yet another reason to complain to/yell at the creator of the file for not using layers correctly”? It’s the first thing I always do… although I must admit I am addicted to layers ;)
If “Show Frame Edges” is turned off, turn it on, then scan through the document looking for empty text and graphic frames. It’s surprising how many designers leave empty frames lying around on their pages and pasteboard. This can be a real pain in the neck when, for example, you’re trying to select something and a pointless, empty box keeps getting in your way.