Image, text and line checks

These checks look at the images, text and strokes of the artwork. Each table lists a check's settings and their value in the five presets; a team profile starts from its preset's column (see Preflight profiles). A value in a column where the severity is Off is the one you start from when you turn the check on in a profile.

Images#

Image resolution#

The effective resolution of every image in the artwork at the size it prints: its pixels divided by its placed size in inches, the lower of width and height. An image of 1200 × 900 px placed 4 × 3 in prints at 300 ppi; scaled up to 8 × 6 in, at 150 ppi. Images smaller than 2 pt are skipped.

• Warn below: an image below it is a finding with the check's severity, such as "Image prints at 250 ppi (1200 × 900 px); at least 300 ppi is needed."
• Error below: an image below it is always an error. 0 turns the error level off.
• Flag above: an image above it is a note, "more than the press can use", which only makes the file heavy. It offers Downsample images (see Preflight fixes). 0 turns it off.
• 1-bit images below: 1-bit images (line art, such as scanned drawings) need more pixels and have their own minimum. The error level doesn't apply to them.

Text and fonts#

The text checks look at visible text that prints as artwork: text on a technical, finishing or hidden layer, in a technical ink or registration colour, or outside the artwork area (slug text) is skipped. Fonts embedded is the exception: it looks at every font in the file.

Fonts embedded#

Every font the file uses must be embedded, or the printer's system puts another font in its place. Each missing font is one finding, on the first page that uses it: "Font Brand Sans-Bold (TrueType) is not embedded." Type 3 fonts are drawn in the file and count as embedded. This check has no settings besides its severity.

Minimum text size#

Text smaller than the press can hold: "Text smaller than 6 pt (smallest 4.5 pt)."

• Smallest text: the smallest size allowed.
• Smallest reverse text: the smallest size of white or knocked-out text, which fills in sooner than text in ink. 0 uses Smallest text for it too.

Small text in several inks#

Small text printed with several process inks blurs when the plates misregister. Rich black (black with other inks added under it) is the usual case: "Rich black text up to 12 pt: black plus other inks, 4 in all (smallest 8 pt)."

• Text up to: text this size or smaller is checked.
• Inks: text printed with at least this many inks is flagged.
• Only rich black: on, only text that is mostly black (90 % black or more) with other inks is flagged; off, any small text in several inks is, such as a brand colour built from cyan and magenta.

White text is never flagged. Set small black text in black alone, and let it overprint (see Colour and ink checks).

Lines#

Minimum line width#

Strokes thinner than the press can hold: "Lines thinner than 0.25 pt (thinnest 0.1 pt)." The width is the narrowest the stroke gets once it is scaled, so a line squeezed to a tenth of its width in one direction counts as a tenth as thick. Die, crease and other technical or finishing lines are not artwork and are skipped, as are strokes that match the die's own lines.

• Thinnest line: the thinnest line allowed.
• Thinnest reverse line: the thinnest white or knocked-out line. 0 uses Thinnest line.
• Zero-width lines are errors: a line of width 0 prints as the thinnest line the device can make, a hairline that can vanish. On, these are always errors; off, they take the check's severity.