The Preflight tool analyzes the contents of a PDF to determine its validity for print production and a variety of other conditions that you can specify. Preflight inspects the file against a set of user-defined values, called preflight profiles. Depending on the profile, the preflight inspection can also correct certain errors. Preflight lists the results in the Preflight dialog box and in the optional reports.
Preflight identifies issues with colors, fonts, transparency, image resolution, PDF version compatibility, and more. Preflight also includes tools for examining PDF syntax or the actual PDF structure of a document.
Before you use the Preflight tool or create a PDF for print, follow these recommendations:
If you created PDFs using Acrobat Distiller, InDesign, or Illustrator, optimize them for print or press using the predefined settings in Distiller or InDesign PDF styles, or using settings provided by your print service provider.
Use CMYK or DeviceN (the Adobe PostScript 3 color space for representing common elements such as duotones, tritones, and quadtones) in a four-color process job.
Embed all fonts from within the authoring application. Embedding ensures that fonts aren’t substituted.