PrintReady review

Not to be confused with Adobe's now-discontinued PressReady, Extensis' PrintReady proofing package is a more accessible way into its groundbreaking Preflight Online service.

Offered in various licence packages for small workgroups, corporate networks and bureaus, PrintReady effectively lets you, your colleagues or even your customers, preflight and package large numbers of prepress documents quickly, and deliver them online.

Like Preflight Online, PrintReady is an Internet-based subscription service, rather than a standalone software program like Extensis' own Preflight Pro. You sign up for the service before you can access your own uniquely named Web URL with a browser. Then you add file names to the list of documents in the browser needing to be checked by the program.

Preflight checks

At the moment, only QuarkXPress, PDF and EPS files are supported directly. However, the Preflighter checks all the fonts and pictures associated with each document, both those embedded and external. A browser plug-in conducts the Preflight routine locally on your Mac, avoiding the need to upload any of the documents. The plug-in is relatively small at 500Kb, and only needs to be downloaded once.

After the files have been checked, you will receive a Preflight report in a new Web page, complete with links to pop-up windows containing further explanation of the problems found and how to correct them. It also gives you the option of collecting all a job's associated files into a StuffIt archive, then sending it off to the intended recipient via FTP. While the PrintReady site is maintained by Extensis on your behalf, you are the administrator and all the site options can be customised online. Everything is easy to do and well-explained on-screen throughout.

Flight of the navigator

Because of this, PrintReady is a valuable product for prepress service bureaus. As well as managing the delivery of electronic copy from online customers, the preflighting of customer files prior to delivery could annually save a bureau thousands of pounds.

Smaller bureaus might also appreciate the predictable costs, which involve a single sign-up fee, plus subsequent annual subscription top-ups. While the original Preflight Online was charged on a per-transaction basis, the basic fee for PrintReady already covers 12,000 transactions a year.

An entry-level licence allows up to five users to share the licence at around £300. But why get colleagues who sit next to each other to access a remote site in the US to preflight and pass files across the room?

The Enterprise Edition looks interesting for big publishing houses, but means the whole system fails whenever there's a glitch in the local Web access. And InDesign documents are not supported at all.

Another concern is that while the PrintReady browser plug-in runs on Macs and PCs, and on both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator browsers, the software is Classic-only. You can administer the system and set up custom profiles in Mac OS X using any browser you like, but the Preflighter will only work with Microsoft and Netscape browsers under Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9 or Classic. This, and the limited variety of Preflightable document formats, won't cut it with some customers. However, as a cheaper access point for Preflight Online, PrintReady is commercially appealing.