[Scribus] preflight questions

[Nicole Raymond]

? (At) 11h00 +0200 17/09/04, s20031701 at tuks.co.za ?crivait (wrote) :
>hi all,

Hi Kobus,

>
>I have to setup a weekly newspapers workflow and have chosen scribus for the
>layout. My question is: Do I need preflight tools?

Yes. Definitely.

>
>We have been looking at o.r.i.s. (full suite) but its rather expensive. A few
>things that is nice is the page paring the dotgain handeling and the 
>checking of
>incoming pdfs (ads).
>
>Are there good cheaper options?

The commercial applications I know work for sure are Marzware 
Preflight Pro and Enfocus Pitstop Professionnal
http://markzware.com/
http://www.enfocus.com/select_region.php?ref=/index.php?

These come at a price and are generally on the prepress part of the 
chain but there are product dedicated to end users. Obviously, your 
project demands that you are able to work out various situations, 
especially with ads that will come from all over the place.

The easy part is what you can control from a to z. It might take a 
little time to settle the workflow but once it's done, you will be 
able to concentrate on the fun part of the job.

With ads, well... my own professionnal advice is, you better be 
bulletproof! It can be a mess as it can be a breeze. You never know 
what's coming. One thing you know for sure is: you are going to be 
the one that handle the situation and find the solutions. It is 
well-known the transmitter has "always done its work like that" and 
it has "always worked before". The ball is yours!

I don't know of any open source preflight application.

>
>How nice would I have to ask to get page pairing added to scribus? (Can it be
>done in a script? Export each page as pdf and import on doublesized page?)
>
>Can scribus evaluate a pdf for embedded fonts, resolution and stuf like that?

Scribus PDFs are clean. AFAIC I never ever encountered any problem 
with a PDF created with Scribus. On the other hand, I must admit my 
experience with these files is new. Nonetheless, I find Scribus to be 
robust in that particular field.

>
>Can scribus compensate for dotgain (does it matter for text)? can gimp?

Dot gain matters but this, you will have to discuss with your printer.

>
>Any advice for a workflow system (opensource or other)?

Our workflow is based on TIFF-IT and PDF. We use Artquest 
http://www.artquest.ca/index7.html.
The principle is simple : the pages are RIPped one at a time. If you 
need to make a change, it will only affect this particular page. Once 
the pages are RIPped, we can proof them, impose them, output them on 
film or plates. All from the very same files. After RIP, no surprise, 
no font problem. no missing link with pics. You just go ahead with 
your next week issue.

(Might sound like an ad but really, it is only sharing some 
professionnal information!) ;-)

HTH :-)

Louis

>
>Thanks,
>Kobus
>
>P.S. For the price they want to charge me I can employ two programmers to work
>on the problem!!
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