Preflighting PDFs Automatically with Acrobat 7

Please see the instructions below for Preflighting PDFs Automatically using Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional.

Requirements

The following software must be installed on your computer to automatically preflight PDFs.

Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional or higher.

Downloading and Importing Fine Line's Acrobat Preflight Profile

Download our Sheetfed Offset Profile ("Save Link As" to your hard drive)
Launch Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional
Open "Tools" menu
Select "Print Production | Preflight" option
Open "Options" menu
Select "Import Preflight Profile"
Browse for downloaded profile and click "Open" button
The Fine Line profile will be added to the beginning of your preflight profiles list.

Preflighting your PDF

Make sure you have generated a Print-Ready PDF using the PDF/X-3:2002 option.
Open your Print-Ready PDF with Acrobat 7 Professional. (Make sure you have not accidentally launched Acrobat Reader.)
Open "Tools" menu
Select "Print Production | Preflight" option
Highlight the Fine Line Profile
Click "Execute" button
Acrobat will list problems it found with your file. You should fix these in your native file and generate a replacement PDF.

What does the Fine Line Preflight Profile check for?

Most of the built-in Acrobat profiles ( for example, the "PDF/X-1a:x" series ) are very strict and produce error warnings for even very usable PDFs. Fine Line profiles are much more forgiving: they check only for common problems that typically cause delays.

If your PDF Passes the Acrobat preflight check, you are not guaranteed a problem-free experience in prepress. On the other hand, a failing preflight very accurately predicts serious problems to come. For this reason we strongly encourage you to preflight and fix the errors indicated.

The Fine Line profiles check specifically for these problems:

Show-Stopping errors:

Is the PDF encrypted? We cannot accept encrypted PDFs without passwords.
Is the PDF damaged? If so, you need to fix the underlying cause in your native file and generate a new PDF.
Are your photos/images at least 300 ppi? 300 ppi is the minimum acceptable resolution for high-res offset printing.
Are your bitmap (line art) images at least 600 ppi? 600 ppi is the minimum acceptable resolution for high-res line art.
Are all your fonts embedded? They must be. Remember to embed all fonts when distilling your PDF
Are "white" objects set to knock out? Remember that white objects do not print with white ink, but knock out to paper.
Are any annotations set to print? PDF annotations must be set to non-printing. You don't want those to print on your final document!
Was the PDF produced with "Acrobat PDF Writer"? You must use the Distiller printer, not the Acrobat PDF Writer printer. The PDF Writer capability is not up to current PDF spec.

Warnings—OK but definitely not ideal:

Is any font size less than 5pt? Depending on the piece, we may not be able to hold this font size on press.
Does the text use artificial bold, italics or outline? If possible, you should use a true font variant for these.