What does preflight mean in printing?
"Preflight" is a PDF quality control process. Its objective is to confirm that all the assets and files needed for printing are valid and in the right format. Preflighting all files helps you prevent the most common errors you can encounter with PDF files.
How to preflight a PDF
You can preflight your PDF using most design software - at MOO, we normally use Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. To preflight from these programs, you can follow these simple steps…
- Open the file (preferably the .ai or .psd file) in the relevant program.
- Click "File>Save As".
- Select "Adobe PDF" as the file format.
- The "Adobe PDF Preset" menu will then pop-up - select [PDF/X-1a:2001] from the dropdown.
- Click "Save PDF".
If you do not have a copy of Illustrator or Photoshop, you may find some useful information in the Adobe Forums.