FlightChecking a Document

Selecting a Document
Locate the document you wish to flightcheck by first selecting “Open Document...” from the File menu.

You can choose which file types to view by selecting the desired checkboxes. Detailed information about the currently selected file will be displayed on the left, such as its file type and version number, the file’s creation and last modified dates and the file’s size on disk. The document’s page size will be presented on the right side of the window, as well as a preview of the document (if one exists). When ready, click the “Open” button or double-click the document’s title on the list.

Note that you can check multiple documents by dragging their icons (or the folder they reside in) onto the FlightCheck application icon and they will be examined individually one by one. (If drag & drop does not work properly for you, then you will need to rebuild your desktop).

Recent Files
Upon opening a document, its name will be conveniently placed on the “Recent Files” pop-up menu under the File menu. This allows you to examine the file at any time in the future by simply selecting it from the menu.

Scanning a Document
When a document has been selected and opened, FlightCheck will then begin scanning the file by examining its elements and building lists of data, such as the colors, fonts and images used by the document and placed artwork. While this is occurring, a window will appear informing you of the progress. You can abort the process at any time by pressing command+“.” (period).

Examining a Document
FlightCheck will perform an extensive examination of the document and all its elements. It will look at each page of the document and examine all of the boxes and objects and record the various attributes and parameters regarding each box, such as its position on the page, its background fill color, its frame color and thickness, and so forth. FlightCheck will also scan the text characters of each story and record their font and style usage, then determine the locations of the font suitcases and printer font files and further scan these files to obtain additional detailed information about each font used. FlightCheck will likewise investigate each of the source image files by locating their links, opening the image files and scanning through their internal data to obtain more information about each image, such as its resolution, color mode, and so on. Additionally, FlightCheck will begin gathering other important information about the document such as its printer settings, trapping defaults, style sheets and typographical preferences, etc. FlightCheck will even conduct further research if it detects and determines the document has related, possibly even required files, such as XTensions, Preferences, Libraries, Dictionaries, PPDs, etc.

Verifying a Document
Once the document has been fully examined, a verification process will begin. The gathered data is compared to a set of user-definable rules (known as the “Ground Controls”) which allows you to instruct FlightCheck to determine what exactly constitutes a passing or failing grade. Finally, when all of the tests have been completed, FlightCheck will display a Results window and present to you a comprehensive and detailed report of the analysis.