Basic Workflow Standardization

[CSimpson]

I am a print shop manager in an in-plant. One of my biggest problems is fonts. Most of the documents I get are from Word or uneducated Publisher users. Some other problems are users creating a two-color jobs in CMYK and black text not being pure black. Currently we handle everything we get on an individual basis, but it is getting completely out of hand. I need to start putting in place some systems to handle some of these problems

Is there a easy way to convert documents to pdf with the correct specifications before I get them? For example is there a pdf print driver that I can put on my web site or push out to everyone on my network that it will create a pdf to my specifications so I do not have to worry about fonts or poor resolution? If so how much does something like that cost?

Is there software, preferably hot-folder driven, that can look at a pdf and if it is only two colors create a two color pdf? Is there software than can ensure that black text is actually pure black so it doesn't count as a color impression if sent to a color machine?

What I am really try to do is get some type of standard work flow in place so I can actually start working on automating some our task. Any advice would be appreciated.

[Keith]

By the sound of it, you're mostly offset? Since you're inplant, I would mention to the owner that his employees are costing him money with these crap files. I'm an owner, I know if someone was costing me money, I'd straighten it out real fast

Ok, seriously. There are a number of things you can do. I have given seminars (ok, only once but I did get paid, therefore, I'm a professional expert) on file preperation and not only did I get paid; but I earned a new customer that send me well prepared files. I am all digital, so it's really not that hard for me. You offset guys have a harder time, especially with files coming from programs like Word and Publisher. Anyway, the first and cheapest thing to do would be to print a "file standards" and send it to everyone. That will help BIG. People feel empowered when they are taught something, especially if it is easy and saves them money (but I guess in the case of an inplant shop, it saves them time by getting the job to them faster).

Second, go here- John Giles Online -and buy that book, 12 Secrets For Digital Success. It is my bible and has taught me A LOT! And if they still give you bad files; you can hit them with the book.

Third, there are PDF drivers that can be installed on your clients computer. Again, THE book talks about that. There are even programs that people can use to create things online and then send it to you.

Fourth, there are also tools for your end that can produce PDFs and edit them. The biggest name in that game is Enfocus. I don't use it (again, all digital) but I heard this is the best tool in the industry- Enfocus - PitStop Professional - The industry standard for PDF preflighting and editing

Fifth- 12 Secrets For Digital Success.

There is some real advice in hear amongst all the jokes. It's Friday, I'm feeling relly good.

Keith

P.S. Seriously, the best thing you can do is educate those that send you files. Otherwise they'll keep sending you crap and you'll keep fixing it and it just keeps going downhill and you'll get miserable and start hating people. And buy that book, not because I work for John Giles (I don't) but because it is very good.

[CSimpson]

By the sound of it, you're mostly offset? Since you're inplant, I would mention to the owner that his employees are costing him money with these crap files.

I have a one color and a two-color offset press, the rest is digital. I am an in-plant at a large public entity whose users are spread out in over 90 facilities. I do not get first right of refusal and I do charge users for my service. I don't have to make a profit, but I can't lose money either. My customers can go elsewhere so forcing procedures would be difficult unless the users thought it was super easy.

[rich apollo]

Can't speak to Publisher, but I've had to deal with my share of Word documents.

1. Word does not support spot colors. It is native RGB - and only in the last version, or so, have you been able to get CMYK out of it.

2. The latest versions of Word can send imagery at adequate resolution.

3. With Word on the PC you can set up what PDF joboptions get used for creating PDFs through the PDF maker toolbar. You don't have that option on the Mac (that I've been able to find). Odd, huh?

4. You say you're an in-plant - does this mean that your clients are internal? If so, then you could influence to get the right tools for the job. Obviously, Publisher and Word are not the right tools.

5. Getting one color (or 4 color) out of these files is easy, now. You can create Preflight droplets to do that. 2 color stuff will be tougher.

[Vee]

I agree 100% that educating the customer in any fashion is the best direction to head in first. Even if your attempt in educating them only reaches 20% of the target audience, you are that much better off.

Couple that with some software on the back end at your site, to automate the PDF correction process and you'll be much better off than you are now. I've used Enfocus PitStop Server to automate PDF preflight/correction via hotfolders, and really loved it. PitStop Professional (mentioned above) doesn't work via hotfolders. There are many other options for hotfolder based preflight/correction of PDF files these days.

Enfocus also has an application called Instant PDF that you might find interesting. Enfocus - Instant PDF - Produce press-ready PDFs with unprecedented simplicity

Best of luck to you!
Vee

[oxburger]

You can educate customers (to a certain degree), but in the end, Office products will never be fully print production capable and the customers aren't going to want to spend $1,500 for CS4 and then have to learn how to use them. More and moe "regular" people are being asked to design materials for their companies and the only tools they have to work with are usually office products. It's only going to get worse (the design world will especially suffer) as companies try to save money by moving some of their design functions to their own employees. "Why should we pay XYZ Design Agency $200 an hour to design that brochure when we can have our secretary Judy throw something together on her computer in her spare time?"*

*The author does not mean to infer that anyone with the name Judy lacks design skills or mean to cause any ill will by using the politically incorrect term "secretary" instead of "executive assistant". Not valid in all states. Sorry Tennesee.

[CSimpson]

Educating my client base on how to submit files is a complete lost cause and to be honest an absolute wast of time. We offered an internal professional development class to our users and out of 6,500 employees 3 showed up in a year. They just don't care and don't want to know. The feeling of everyone here including upper management is that one of the reasons we have an in-plant is so we don't have to know or care about creating print ready files. They feel that is my job.

So, again I ask is there any easy way to handle my problem? Is there a pdf or postscript driver that I can push out to everyone pre-configured to the way I want it? Is there some type of server based pdf creation tool that can create the pdf using the users font files when it creates the pdf? There has to be something out there that will ensure that I can at least get a file that I can work with.

I was searching on the internet and found activePDF. Has anyone ever used this?

[deckm00@yahoo.com]

You might try looking into Web-to-print products such as EFI's Digital Storefront. With many of these apps the client will be able to preview their file as a PDF and therefore the burden of "proofing" lies with them. DSF is pretty pricey but then it does alot and so there are alternatives depending on what you want to accomplish.

[DanB]

I'm a print shop supervisor at an in-plant. I came upon a tool called PDF Redirect. You can find it at PDF reDirect - The free PDF Creator alternative to pdf995, cutepdf and freepdf.

We worked with this company and they customized the product to suit our needs. They even replaced their splash screen with our logo, provided me the help files so I could modify them for my user base and set the defaults of the PDFs created to meet our needs. This was done at a very reasonable cost.

We purchased a couple of thousand seats for around 2 to 3 bucks each and give them to our customers at our cost.

The only thing the customer has to do is select PDF Redirect as the printer to prepare a PDF of any application running on a Windows machine. Most customers are willing to do this to get the printing they want.

[Shawn]

I've gotten good results with setting up customers using the CutePDF print drivers to get (relatively) clean pdfs out of Word and Publisher. They're based on the open source Ghostscript project so they're free to download and install. They don't make PDFs that are technically as clean as Acrobat Distiller or the Acrobat print drivers, but they work well without requiring a lot of setup by the client.

We usually then use either Acrobat's built in editing tools or Pitstop to fix the rest of the issues in the PDF.

Unfortunately you're in a Garbage In = Garbage Out situation. Education is a key element in reducing wasted time and money on this type of job. An automatic PDF print driver will solve some of your issues, like missing fonts, but it won't be able to solve others like spot colors designed in RGB. If your internal clients aren't willing to work to make printable files you're going to be out of luck. Have you tried offering a small discount to users who send you clean files that process with a minimal effort on your part?

Shawn