Spotlight: Workflow

Many Packaging Professionals Find FlightCheck Professional Indispensable

AMarkzware is the maker of FlightCheck Professional, the premier prepress tool for professionals in graphic reproduction, which introduced Version 5.0 last September to coincide with the release of Mac OS X. FlightCheck is a powerful workflow tool that checks every detail associated with a print file that is being sent to a printer. MarkzWare has other products that are also gaining market momentum--FlightCheck Online and FlightCheck Studio--but it is FlightCheck Pro that has a truly global presence.

"We're the de facto standard within the industry," claims Mary Gay Marchese, who handles public relations out of MarkzWare's Santa Ana, CA office. Marchese explains that what sets FlightCheck apart is that it's not a plug-in attached to another production program. FlightCheck's patented technology is the only program that is separate from all other programs and checks all of a project's native documents, PDF files, and graphic image files.

Over the last decade or so, FlightCheck has experienced a steady growth worldwide that has brought it to this dominant position. It is a very stable and versatile program that may find indespensible, like Jennifer Obrotka, creative art director at 4 Kids Entertainment. "Whatever program you need it to collect from, it does a good job," Obrotka says. "I wouldn't want to work without it."

4 Kids Entertainment creates packaging for DVDs and VHS tapes from their Manhattan office, as well as actually performing the video authoring. They produce industry ads and packages under weekly deadlines, and use FlightCheck religiously. Obrotka uses Version 5.52 in association with QuarkXPress, which they use most often for print files, to gather Illustrator and Photoshop files. "It's just an excellent collection tool," Obrotka explains.

Obrotka finds that FlightCheck is very useful not only at prepress, but early in projects as well. Sometimes 4 Kids receives client art that is not very well organized. Trying to design a book with many elements, for example, Flight Check helps the 4 Kids staff organize and verify the digital files on the front end, as soon as they receive the materials.

Other Markzware software includes Flight Check Studio, which monitors file production early in the design process. With Studio, a designer can set up design policies that the program will monitor as the designer designs. The program alerts the user whenever those policies are compromised.

FlightCheck Online is a tracking and monitoring tool for sending files over the web. The program lets designers know instantly if there's a problem with a job, and can track the job through its production stages.