Smart Preflight is a functionality that allows you to handle many different job types and specifications by using only one Preflight Profile. This is possible, thanks to the use of variables.
For example, if one of your preflight settings checks the page size, it is sufficient to define one Profile using a variable with the most commonly used page size (e.g. A4) as the default. If a document type with a different page size comes in (e.g. a leaflet or a newspaper), you can select the required page size from a pre-defined list or type the appropriate value (depending on how the variable is defined) in the dialog that pops up when running the preflight check.
There are two types of variables:
- Constant variables are variables that get their value from user input (in PitStop
Pro, as in the example above) or from a Job Ticket or a database (in PitStop Server and Connect):
- In PitStop Pro, a dialog pops up just before running the preflight check. You can manually enter the required values.
- In PitStop Server, you must send an XML/JDF Job Ticket along with the PDF. The information in this Job Ticket (e.g. the page size) is used to determine the value of the variables.
- In the PitStop Server Configurator (for use with Switch), the information can be taken either from a Job Ticket or from a database.
- In Connect, you can create Job Tickets that collect job information for each document processed by a Connector. The metadata in these Job Tickets will be used to determine the value of the variables.
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Rule-based variables are variables of which the value is calculated based on other variables (possible in all Enfocus products)
For example, suppose you want to check the ink coverage using a Preflight Profile. The optimal ink coverage depends on several different factors, just like the paper type and the printing method. Without variables, you must define different Profiles for each combination of paper and printing method, each with fixed total ink coverage values (e.g. Profile 1 for Uncoated + Sheetfed Litho and Profile 2 for coated + Sheetfed Litho, ...). However, using variables, you can define one Profile and enter the required information for the job (paper type and printing method) to calculate the optimal ink coverage at run-time.
These two types of variables can be combined (i.e. rule-based variables calculated based on a drop-down of constant variables), making it possible to configure multiple checks and fixes based on a single user input (PitStop Pro) or on only one value in a Job Ticket or database.
| Constants User input |
Constants Job Tickets |
Constants Databases |
Rule-based | |
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| PitStop Pro |
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| PitStop Server |
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| PitStop Server with Enfocus Switch |
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| Enfocus Connect/Connectors |
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