Turnhout - VIGC, the Flemish Innovation Center for Graphic Communication, has released an important update of its VIGC Live Preflight Profiles for Adobe InDesign. The update addresses user feedback, integrates new features from InDesign CS5 and adds profiles for the packaging industry. The full package is available free of charge. Preventing mistakes in the design phase has never been easier.

A successful start
"When we launched our VIGC Live Preflight Profiles for Adobe InDesign CS4, just over a year ago, it generated a lot of attention and we received some very positive feedback. Well over 5000 people visited our website to learn more, and many of them downloaded the complete package. A user survey confirmed that those who implemented the profiles in their workflow are really satisfied. Over 40% of the people surveyed were able to prevent – probably very costly – errors", says Eddy Hagen, managing director and trendwatcher at VIGC. "What's also interesting: our monthly web statistics indicate an ongoing interest in the VIGC Live Preflight Profiles. Each month new people discover them and find the profiles awesome and fantastic."

Adobe Creative Suite 5 update required
With the launch of Adobe Creative Suite 5, the profiles were due for an update. "The extra checks we added are related to some cool new features in Adobe InDesign CS5", comments Didier Haazen, senior consultant at VIGC and responsible for the VIGC Live Preflight Profiles. "For example, you can use metadata from an image to compose the content of a caption. Quite nice for copyright information, which now can be 'grabbed' from the metadata in the linked file. Adobe did not only implement this 'live caption' functionality, they also included a corresponding preflight check: if the 'live caption' can't find the required metadata in the file, it will give an error. Another example is the ability to create multiple page sizes in a single document, so there is also a check for that."

Next to the new preflight options, the update addresses 'bug fixes'. "We asked people to participate in a survey a few months after they downloaded the VIGC Live Preflight Profiles", Haazen continues. "We asked whether they were using the profiles and whether they considered them to be an advantage, and we also inquired for further improvement suggestions. Based upon that feedback we made some adjustments and additions to the profiles. One of the requests was to provide Live Preflight Profiles for packaging. Most people will probably use different tools to create package designs, but for those preferring InDesign we added five new profiles, once again consistent with the GWG profiles for PDF preflighting."