Using Live Preflight

Learn how Live Preflight can flag potential problems while you work. Create a preset to determine which errors are flagged, and learn how to correct them.

• View full-size on Adobe TV
• View more videos like this

Requirements

To complete the tasks demonstrated in this tutorial, you need the following software and files:

Adobe InDesign CS4

• Try
• Buy

Sample file

lrvid4025_id.zip (ZIP, 612MB)

Prerequisite knowledge

Intermediate knowledge of live color enhancements

Using Live Preflight

Eliminate missing information before files go to print using the revised Live Preflight command in Adobe® InDesign® CS4. In this tutorial, you will learn how to check for dozens of conditions using a custom preflight profile. Using this feature will help you avoid costly delays in the production process.

Opening the Preflight panel

The Preflight panel allows you to detect the number of text and image errors in your document. To view the number of document errors:

1. Open your InDesign document. To see the number of errors Preflight detected, look at the bottom of the document. The number of errors Preflight detected appears next to the red dot in the lower-left corner of the window.

   

   Figure 1: Viewing the number of errors detected by Preflight
2. To open the Preflight panel, double-click the text next to the red dot. This panel identifies the errors and issues impacting your document.

   

   Figure 2: The Preflight panel

   By default, the Preflight panel uses the Basic profile. A profile is a list of conditions that you want InDesign to check the document against. The Basic profile is listed in the Profile menu at the top-right corner of the Preflight panel. The Basic profile checks for some limited issues, such as overset text frames.

   

   Figure 3: Selecting a Preflight profile

Creating a customized Preflight profile

You can create a customized profile to identify a specific set of conditions during the preproduction process. To create a customized profile:

1. Click the Preflight panel menu and choose Define Profiles. The Preflight Profiles dialog box opens. You can select or deselect various checkboxes to create a customized set of conditions for a personalized workflow.

   

   Figure 4: Choose Define Profiles to create a custom profile
2. To create a new profile, click on the plus icon in the bottom-left corner. Type a name for the customized profile in text field at the top of the dialog box. To delete a profile, select the profile and click the minus icon.

   

   Figure 5: Enter a name for the custom profile
3. Expand the categories you want to modify. The categories include Links, Color, Images And Objects, Text, and Document. Select the conditions that you want to add to your profile. Some conditions, such as ColorImage Minimum Resolution, require you to enter specific values for Preflight to check against.
4. Once you have selected your conditions, click OK to close the Preflight Profiles dialog box.
5. To switch between the Basic and customized profiles, click the Profile menu in the Preflight panel and select the desired profile.

Identifying errors using the Preflight panel

Once you have set your conditions using the Preflight Profiles dialog box, InDesign automatically starts to identify text and image errors in your document. These errors are listed in the Preflight panel, which should still be open after you close the Preflight Profiles dialog box.

1. To view text errors, click to expand the Text menu. To view image errors, expand the Image And Objects menu.
2. To view information about specific errors, click the error in question. A description appears in the Info pane at the bottom of the Preflight panel along with suggestions for how to fix the error.

   

   Figure 6: The Info pane contains a description of the error
3. Located next to each error in the Error pane is a hyperlink to the page of your document on which that error appears. To go to an error, click on its hyperlink.

   

   Figure 7: Locating the error
4. Once you have located the error in the document, you can make your corrections. The error then disappears from the Preflight panel. This update emphasizes the dynamic nature of the new Live Preflight feature in InDesign CS4.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 for each error identified in the Preflight panel.

Using the Folder option in the Links panel

Another new feature in InDesign CS4 is the Folder 0 option. The Folder 0 option sorts links by folder location. This organizational feature allows you to update a batch of links at once. To access the Folder 0 option:

1. Expand the Links panel. Select Panel Options from the panel menu in the upper-right corner of the Links Panel. The Panel Options dialog box opens.

   

   Figure 8: The Links panel
2. Click the Show Column checkbox for Folder 0 and click OK to close the dialog box.

   

   Figure 9: Showing the Folder 0 column

   Note: The Folder 0 option allows you to see the folders in which links are placed on your computer. You can sort links by their folder locations by clicking Folder 0 at the top of the Links panel.

3. To select all the links from a common folder, click the first link in the list, and then press the Shift key and click the last.

Using the Relink To Folder option

The new Relink To Folder option associates selected links to a specific folder. This option is also useful for replacing low-resolution images with high-resolution ones or fixing broken links. To use the Relink To Folder option:

1. Select the icon in the upper-right corner of the Links panel, and then select Relink To Folder.

   

   Figure 10: Choosing Relink To Folder
2. The Select A Folder dialog box opens. Choose the folder where the images you want to link are located.
3. Select Match Same Filename And Extension to have InDesign find the same exact images.
4. Select Match Same Filename But This Extension to have InDesign find the same asset but in a different format, such as TIF versus JPEG.
5. Click Select to have InDesign automatically select and relink the assets.

   Note: If you select to relink to assets with different file formats, InDesign will also replace the assets in your document.

Where to go from here

• InDesign CS4 Help and Support
• Learn InDesign CS4
• Introducing InDesign CS4, by David Blatner
• Using the Links panel, by Michael Ninness
• Working with Smart Guides, by Michael Ninness
• Lynda.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

About the authors