# INTRODUCTION:
The following tutorial is designed to help you load the "All potential problems" Preflight Profile into Adobe Acrobat Professional. (Note this will only work if you have Acrobat Professional, which is an extention of Acrobat Reader).

# WHAT IS A PREFLIGHT PROFILE:
Preflight profiles are designed to test your PDF file for any potential problems prior to submitting it to your printer. It is designed to highlight potentially costly mistakes prior to printing. You should always preflight your file prior to submission..

# BEFORE YOU START:
1) Download the Print Domain Preflight Profile clicking here.
For more infomation on which version you need to use and how to download them click here. Be sure to get the correct one for your version and type of computer (PC or Mac).

# HOW TO LOAD THE PRINT DOMAIN PRESETS:
2) Open Acrobat and Click Advanced > Preflight (to open the preflight panel).


3) You can see the preflight panel in the image below, click on Options > Import Preflight Profile.


4) Then you will be presented with this dialogue box use it to navigate to the file that you downloaded and saved to your hard drive in step 1. Click on the file and Click Open.


5) You should now see the List all potential problems profile in the preflight list (see image below).


# HOW USE THE PRINT DOMAIN PRESETS:
6) Open the file in Acrobat that you wish to preflight, open the preflight dialogue box (if it isn't open already) by clicking Advanced > Preflight

7) Now Click the preflight check you want to run e.g. List all potential problems and then Click Execute.
The below image shows an average result from using this preflight. This preflight profile will flag some things in your file as problems that may not present a real problem when the file is sent to the RIP, the trick is to know which ones to act on and which to ignore. Below is a list of errors that you can't ignore, some others which you may need to fix depending on your job, and ones you don't need to worry about.


MUST FIX ERRORS:
Image Res. less than 200
Image is not CMYK or Spot
Uses Transparency
Uses RGB colour
Font or Fonts not embedded

MAY NEED TO FIX ERRORS:
PRF Version is newer than 1.3
File contains Courier
More than 4 plates (if your job does not contain spot colours then you will need to fix this)

DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THESE:
Uses CID type 2 fonts
Hairline
Uses Smooth shade
BX...EX in page description

WHAT TO DO IF I GET AN ERROR:
If you have an error from the MUST FIX (and sometimes the MAY NEED TO FIX) lists above then you need to fix it in your Original File and then make a new PDF and check it again to ensure the problem has been fixed. You may find one of our other tutorials on how to prepare a file using Illustrator, Photoshop or Indesign Useful at this point.

# OTHER THINGS TO CHECK:
You can check to see if your overprinting and trapping has worked in Acrobat by Clicking on Advanced > Overprint Preview (this will show you the effect of your overprint as it will appear on the printed job, e.g. if you have grey text (set to overprint) over a coloured background when you turn this ON the text will go darker (See images below).




It is often hard to tell if solid black text is overprinting using this method so to check this further you can examine each colour separation by Clicking Advanced > Output Preview this will give you the following window (see images below). Click in the box marked with a cross next to each separation name to show or hide each plate. For example you can turn off the black plate to ensure there is no Knockout (white shape) left by the black text and in turn ensure it is overprinting (see images below).
NOTE: Solid 100% black text will overprint on our RIP By default (see RIP settings for more information).

Below is the window that will open when you Click Advanced > Output Preview.


This is what our example card with black text will look like will all plates turned on.


This is what the Output preview window looks like with the black plate turned off. Note the cross is no longer in the box.


This is what our card looks like minus the black plate. Note there is no white space (knockout) where the black text was because the black text was set to overprint.