[Scribus] preflight questions

[Plinnell]

On Friday 17 September 2004 10:00, s20031701 at tuks.co.za wrote:
> hi all,
>
> I have to setup a weekly newspapers workflow and have chosen scribus for
> the layout. My question is: Do I need preflight tools?

Most definitely. Not just for Scribus, but for receiving incoming files.


> 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).

Page pairing might be possible in 1.3+. Dot gain is more a printer's job IMO.  
Littlecms does have ink limiting possibilites, but this is quite a new 
feature.
>
> Are there good cheaper options?

I can strongly second Louis' recommendations for both PitStop Pro and 
Markzware.

Pit Stop Pro 6.x and Acrobat 5.0.5 (full version) will run fine too under 
Codeweaver's Crossover 3.x. 

Markzware will handle a wide range of files and give you detailed info 
including fonts and images embedded and checks for correct color space and 
resolution.

The thing i like about both of these, is the can generate very detailed 
reports which can be sent to someone when they send you a messed up file. It 
often puts an end to the "It always worked before" argument.

Also running PitStop on the Scribus PDFs will put an end to the "The PDF is 
borken argument. I have tested Scribus PDF constantly during its development 
and they are highly conformant to the spec. 

> 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?
>
On import, no. That's for both PitStop and Markzware. 
> Can scribus compensate for dotgain (does it matter for text)? can gimp?

Not at the moment. Though, I would expect that to be handled on the press end, 
not a requirement of the file provider. 
>
> Any advice for a workflow system (opensource or other)?
>
> Thanks,
> Kobus
>
> P.S. For the price they want to charge me I can employ two programmers to
> work on the problem!!

In my experience, you will need at least one Mac and One win32 machine, if you 
are handling a wide range of formats.

Hope that helps,
Peter