Gent, Belgium – Enfocus announces PitStop Server 10, an upgraded version of its automated PDF preflighting, correction and certification solution. PitStop Server 10 introduces major new automatic features, including transparency flattening, new color management capabilities, and PDF optimization to reduce file sizes.

"As part of our 'You first' commitment to our customers, all the implemented features are in answer to requests of our users,' says Elli Cloots, Director of Product management at Enfocus. "We put our customers first and take their feedback to heart. With PitStop Server 10, we are giving them the right tools to make them successful and more productive.  The new functionalities will allow them to save time and focus on things that really matter, like customer service."

Transparency flattening at preflighting stage
The new ability to flatten transparencies within PDFs dramatically improves output consistency. Although the latest print engines can flatten transparency well, earlier generation configurations are still in widespread use, and can not always handle transparencies in a reliable manner.

"Although transparency flattening is often only done at the end of the workflow, before going to output; we frequently see people having problems with different results on different systems," explains Kristof Kemseke, Product Manager at Enfocus. "We want to make our customers more efficient with this feature. We think it is important to do transparency flattening at the preflight stage. Earlier incorporation will result in more consistent file output."

Optimize your PDFs
The new ability to optimize PDF files is in response to customer feedback, as well, Kemseke says.

"We got more and more requests from users that they want to get smaller PDFs," he says.The optimization functionality in PitStop Server 10 analyses and removes unnecessary items within the PDF, such as areas outside the bounding boxes of images or outside trim boxes. This results in a smaller file size for storage and also for other purposes such as faster downloads from websites."

Bringing color to the next level
Color management is also brought to a new level in PitStop Server 10, in common with the enhancements applied to the new PitStop Pro 10, which is being released at the same time. PitStop Server 10 can now, automatically check for ink coverage issues while taking into account transparency, overprint settings, overlapping items and layers. Black Point Compensation is supported when using the Adobe CMM or Little CMS and you can choose the Adobe settings directly from the PitStop Server preferences and hot folder editor.

PitStop Server 10 is compatible with recent Mac OS X or Windows platforms, including the latest OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Windows 7 operating systems. PitStop Pro, the PDF preflighting and manual editing application, is also upgraded with similar features.

Availability and pricing, PitStop Server NA
PitStop Server 10 will be commercially available in October 2010. With immediate effect, a grace period commences whereby buyers of PitStop Server get a version 09 key and will receive a free upgrade when version 10 becomes available.

Customers using PitStop Server 4.x can take advantage of a discounted loyalty upgrade price for their versions until the end of the year, for $1,499.

Starting today and until release, both single and volume users with more recent product versions (PitStop Server 08 and 09) receive a customer loyalty discount when pre-ordering upgrades to PitStop Server 10. And until the year-end, everyone buying an upgrade for those versions gets a copy of LightSwitch for free.

For more information, contact your preferred reseller, email [email protected] or consult the Enfocus website at www.enfocus.com.