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Guided workflow variation

Check each customer PDFagainst the job's print specs.

Open the file at intake, choose the profile on the job ticket, and see what misses your specs, with page numbers and the page boxes drawn on a preview, before anything reaches the RIP.

At intake, open the file, choose the job's profile, and read every miss with its page numbers before the file moves on to prepress.

Pay once. Own it forever.

One-time purchase on the Microsoft Store · No subscription · Instant install

Get it from Microsoft

Buy through the Microsoft Store—instant install, automatic updates, and a Microsoft receipt for easy expensing. No account needed on our site, and no subscription on Store purchases.

Full Print Preflight Desk overview
One-time purchase No telemetry Local-first

windows · your shop profiles · original only read · nothing uploads · 15-day free trial

If this sounds like your week

Intake is where a bad file is cheapest to catch.

Once a job is imposed, plated, or queued on the digital press, every correction costs more: new plates, a lost slot, paper already spent. Yet intake is often the rushed step, done at the front desk between phone calls, with the order form in one hand and a reader zoomed to four hundred percent in the other.

Where tooling usually breaks

Specs are numbers. Eyes are not rulers.

Nobody can see from a monitor that a photo was enlarged to 112 ppi, that the bleed is 4 points on the left edge only, or that one font on page six fell back to Courier. Those faults hide until the sheet is in the delivery tray. Then the call to the client becomes an apology instead of a request sent days earlier.

Where Print Preflight Desk lands

Read the file the way the press will.

Print Preflight Desk opens the PDF and measures what matters to output: effective ppi at the placed size on both axes, bleed on all four edges, embedded fonts on the pages where glyphs are drawn, colour spaces in images and vector fills, spot names, live transparency, and the declared output intent. Each miss lands in a table with its pages, beside a preview.

Pay once. Own it forever.

One-time purchase on the Microsoft Store · No subscription · Instant install

Get it from Microsoft

Buy through the Microsoft Store—instant install, automatic updates, and a Microsoft receipt for easy expensing. No account needed on our site, and no subscription on Store purchases.

Learn more about Print Preflight Desk

windows · your shop profiles · original only read · nothing uploads · 15-day free trial

What you get

Feature highlights

Named shop profiles

one profile per press, product, or customer, holding trim size, tolerance, minimum bleed, colour, grey, and 1-bit resolution limits, colour policy, spot colours with allowed names, transparency, and output intent.

Every check with page numbers

page size, TrimBox, CropBox, box nesting, bleed, effective ppi, fonts, colour spaces, transparency, spot colours, and output intent, each finding with its severity and pages.

A preview with the boxes drawn

the page renders with its Trim, Bleed, and Art boxes outlined and their sizes in points, and selecting a finding jumps to its page.

Reports to send back

a self-contained HTML report and a PDF report with the verdict first, the file’s SHA-256, the profile, and every finding with its pages.

A fixed copy for boxes and rotation

Save fixed copy writes the TrimBox and BleedBox from the profile and normalises the Rotate value in a new PDF, listing every change.

Original only read, nothing uploaded

reports and fixed copies are new files, colour, fonts, and transparency stay as supplied, and the app makes no network connections.

Especially when

  • Check every customer PDF against the shop’s own rules for that press, product, or customer, instead of judging it by eye at the counter
  • Get the same pass or fail answer on the same file whoever is on shift, from named profiles with every threshold written down
  • Send the customer a report that lists each problem with its page and the profile’s limit, instead of a rejection email written from memory
  • Correct missing or wrong TrimBox and BleedBox entries in a new copy, leaving the customer’s artwork and original file untouched

Who benefits

Real-world scenarios

Front desk at a busy copy shop

Files arrive while the customer waits at the counter, and the desk needs to say yes or no to a run of five hundred flyers before the customer leaves, without calling the prepress operator over.

The desk opens the PDF with Choose a PDF, picks the flyer profile, and reads the verdict. A FAIL comes with the page and the reason, such as an RGB image or a font that is not embedded, so the customer hears what to fix.

Prepress inbox on a Monday

A weekend of web orders left forty PDFs in the shared folder, and the prepress operator wants to sort them into ready, needs a look, and back to the client before the first press run.

Double-clicking each PDF in File Explorer opens it straight into a check. PASS files move on, PASS WITH WARNINGS files get a closer look, and FAIL files get a saved report attached to the reply.

A multi-page catalogue

A sixty-page catalogue arrives with one problem image somewhere in the middle, and the operator needs to know which page without paging through the whole file at high zoom.

The findings table lists the image-resolution miss with its page number. Selecting the row jumps the preview to that page, with the trim and bleed boxes drawn, so the operator can see the image in place.

Deep dive

What each check reads in a customer PDF

Page size. The finished size comes from the TrimBox, or the ArtBox when there is no TrimBox, and is compared with the profile's trim size after rotation, within the profile's tolerance. When pages differ in size, the finding lists each size with its pages.

Trim, crop, and nesting. Every page needs a TrimBox or an ArtBox, the CropBox should match the MediaBox, and the boxes must nest: trim inside bleed inside media. A miss names the pages and the boxes involved.

Bleed. The distance from each trim edge to the bleed edge is measured on all four sides. The finding reports the smallest edge, for example "Bleed is 4 pt on the left edge of page 1; the profile requires 9 pt on every edge." When a file has no BleedBox, bleed is measured to the CropBox or MediaBox and a note says so.

Effective image resolution. For every placed image, including images inside Form XObjects, the app divides the pixels by the placed size in inches on each axis and reports the lower value. Rotated placements are measured along their own edges. A finding reads like "Page 1: DeviceRGB image at 50 ppi (limit 149). 100 × 100 px placed at 144 × 144 pt."

Fonts. Each font is checked for an embedded font file, Type 3 fonts count as embedded, and the finding lists the pages where the font actually draws text. Courier is flagged as a likely missing-font fallback.

Colour. Image colour spaces, named colour resources, and the colour set for fills and strokes are read, so RGB in a CMYK job is found whether it sits in a photo or in a vector shape. The profile's colour policy decides whether it fails, and nothing is converted.

Spot colours. Separation and DeviceN ink names are collected from pages, Form XObjects, and images. The count and the names are compared with the profile, and process inks plus All and None are not counted.

Transparency and output intent. Constant alpha, blend modes, soft masks, and transparency groups are reported per page, with the blend colour space checked against CMYK. A missing or non-CMYK output intent is reported at the severity the profile sets.

Reading the result. Any Error makes the verdict FAIL, any Warning makes it PASS WITH WARNINGS, and Notes add context. The status line under the table carries the SHA-256, the file size, the profile, and the time of the check.

How it is built

Built to apply your rules and leave the file alone.

Your rules, by name

Every threshold lives in a named shop profile for a press, product, or customer, so the same file checked against the same profile gets the same verdict every time.

Original only read

The customer’s PDF is opened for reading. Reports and fixed copies are new files, a fixed copy cannot replace the original, and colour, fonts, and transparency stay as supplied.

Nothing uploads

The app makes no network connection, has no account, and collects no telemetry. Files are checked and reported on the PC that opened them.

FAQ

Straight answers—no glossary dump

How do I check a customer PDF against our print specs?

Set up a shop profile with your specs once. Then choose Choose a PDF, or Open another PDF, pick the file, and select the job's profile in the list above the findings. Print Preflight Desk shows PASS, PASS WITH WARNINGS, or FAIL, and a table of findings with severity, check, pages, and the reason. Save reports keeps the result.

What do Error, Warning, and Note mean?

An Error is a miss the profile treats as blocking, such as an unembedded font or an image at or below the error resolution, and it makes the verdict FAIL. A Warning needs a decision but still passes, such as an image between the error and warning limits. A Note is context, such as live transparency the profile allows or a page with no BleedBox.

How is image resolution measured?

As effective ppi: the image's pixels divided by the size it is placed at on the page, in inches, worked out for the width and the height, with the lower of the two reported. Rotated placements are measured along their own edges, and images inside Form XObjects are included. The finding gives the pixels, the placed size in points, and the profile's limit.

Can I open a PDF straight from File Explorer?

Yes. Print Preflight Desk registers as an app for PDF files, so you can choose it from Open with, or double-click a PDF when it is your chosen app, and the file opens straight into a check against the current profile. Inside the app, Choose a PDF and Open another PDF use the standard Windows file picker.

What happens to the customer's original PDF?

It is only read. Print Preflight Desk opens the file you choose, works out its SHA-256, and checks it against the profile. Reports are new HTML and PDF files in the folder you pick, and Save fixed copy writes a new PDF under a name you choose and refuses to replace the original. The artwork, colour, fonts, and transparency in the customer's file stay exactly as supplied.

Where do customer files go, and how do I get Print Preflight Desk?

Customer files stay on your PC. Print Preflight Desk makes no network connection, has no account, and collects no telemetry; it reads only the PDF you choose and writes only to the folder or file name you pick. It is a one-time purchase in the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 version 2004 or later and Windows 11, on x64 and Arm64 PCs, and the Store runs a 15-day free trial with every feature.

Related pages

A preflight profile for every press and product. A preflight report the customer can act on. Preflight software built for the print shop counter.

The customer PDF is in.
Check it against your own rules.

Print Preflight Desk checks each PDF against the profile your shop set for that press, product, or customer, gives PASS, PASS WITH WARNINGS, or FAIL with every finding tied to its pages, and saves an HTML and PDF report to send back. The original is only read, nothing uploads, and the Microsoft Store runs a 15-day free trial.

Pay once. Own it forever.

One-time purchase on the Microsoft Store · No subscription · Instant install

Get it from Microsoft

Buy through the Microsoft Store—instant install, automatic updates, and a Microsoft receipt for easy expensing. No account needed on our site, and no subscription on Store purchases.

Open full product page

Ghent Workgroup and GWG are names of the Ghent Workgroup. Print Preflight Desk is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Ghent Workgroup.

Technical specifications

Technical specifications for procurement

Spec Implementation
Data Sovereignty Reads only the PDF you choose in the Windows file picker or open from File Explorer; writes HTML and PDF reports only to the folder you pick and fixed copies only under the name you choose, refusing to replace the original; shop profiles stay in the app’s own local storage
Telemetry Status None; no account, no telemetry, and the app makes no network connections
Core Runtime .NET 10 and WinUI 3 (Windows App SDK), packaged as MSIX; PDF inspection, reports, and fixed copies in managed code; page previews rendered with the PDF engine built into Windows
Network Requirements Fully functional offline; the package declares no internet capability and the app makes no network connections
Deployment Compatibility Windows 10 version 2004 or later and Windows 11, x64 or Arm64; one-time purchase on the Microsoft Store with a 15-day free trial
Inputs PDF files chosen in the Windows file picker or opened from File Explorer through the .pdf file association
Checks Page size and tolerance, TrimBox, CropBox, box nesting, bleed on every edge, effective ppi for colour, grey, and 1-bit images, font embedding and Courier, colour spaces, live transparency and blend space, spot colours and Separation /All, rotation, /UserUnit, and output intent
Shop profiles Named profiles with US Letter, US Tabloid, A4, A3, custom, or any-size trim; editable tolerance, bleed, ppi limits, colour policy (Classic CMYK, 2015 delivery, or Any), spot count and allowed names, transparency rule, and output intent severity; starting profile built on GWG 2015 sheetfed CMYK
Verdict PASS, PASS WITH WARNINGS, or FAIL; each finding an Error, Warning, or Note, with its check name and page numbers
Reports Self-contained HTML and PDF reports (name.report.html and name.report.pdf) with the verdict, the file’s SHA-256, the profile, findings, and tables of pages, images, fonts, colour, transparency, and output intent
Fixed copy New PDF with the TrimBox and BleedBox set from the profile and the Rotate value normalised; every change listed with before and after values and the copy’s SHA-256