Flightchecking & preflight DTP checklist for sending documents to press. Guide for submitting files for print.

Graphic design document prepress checklist – Top 10 tips

What items should a graphic designer check before sending a file off to prepress or print?

The days when designers and art directors could rely on a separate graphic arts, production department, or finished artist to prepare their files for commercial printing are long gone.

These days a designer will generally check their own files to ensure that they are press-ready and won't cause any problems once they arrive at the printers, prepress bureau, or magazine production department.

Top 10 preflighting tips

Of course top ten lists are subjective and much will depend on the type of printing job and how your printer sets up their workflow. The following guide is simply a list of some of the most important tips & techniques that we have found useful over the years. As ever, your chosen printer will often be the best guide as to how exactly to supply digital design files. With that in mind, let's press on.

1. Using the correct design software for the job. Most graphic designers will chose the tool they will use, once the scope of a job is known. If it is a multi page document, then QuarkXpress or Adobe InDesign would seem the logical choice. However, it has been known for multi-page documents to turn up in Adobe Illustrator files, or even Corel Draw. Neither of which is geared up for this. In addition, Photoshop is the industry standard Image manipulation package, but may not be the ideal format for a text intensive design.
2. Check the format that the printer prefers files to be delivered in. For examples, do they prefer original QuarkXpress or InDesign files, or do they prefer PDFs.
   • If they prefer the original DTP page layout files, endure that all relevant files (graphics and logos and so on) are included. With QuarkXpress, this can be achieved with a collect for output, whereas with Adobe InDesign all files can be gathered using the Package feature from the File meInu.
   • If the printer or magazine prefers the file as a PDF, it is worth checking what type of PDF is preferable. Many suppliers will provide a PDF profile that allows you to create PDFs with Adobe Acrobat Distiller to their exact specifications. Many production experts prefer that you avoid exporting PDFs directly from within InDesign, as this can cause issues with some imagesetters.
3. Provide a printed proof. Try to always supply a printed hard copy along with the digital files. Although, with fast turnaround jobs, this is sometimes difficult, it is always best to try and provide a good hard copy of the document to be printed. This allows the printer or magazine to spot any obvious output errors, or file corruption.
   • Always specify the role of the proof. If color is critical and the proof is intended as a color match, or contract proof, then it is important that it has been produced professionally using a trusted proofing system – again ask the printer or production department what they prefer. It may also be desirable to ensure that your systems are color calibrated.
   • If a proof is only to provided to check for general layout and text flow, then it it worthwhile specifying that the proof is For Position Only.
4. Ensure that all colors have been applied correctly. CMYK for four color process printing jobs, or that the correct Pantone references have been used for spot color jobs. Never supply RBG files. It may also be worth checking with the printer as to how they want special colors, such as metallic or fluorescent inks and varnishes specified in the document.
5. Have all pages been checked to allow for the correct amount of bleed? Some printers prefer 3mm bleed, whilst other may require 5mm.
   

Points 6 to 10 of our prepress checklist continues here.