User Manual

1.3 Finding Fixups

Updated on

Learn in this Article,

  • how to search for Fixups and
  • which approaches are offered.

1. Introduction

In the Workflow numerous standard Fixups are available for selection. Quickly find out whether a suitable Fixup is already available for the problem you are looking for by searching for keywords. Familiarizing yourself with the entire range of available Fixups saves a lot of time in daily work. Various options are offered in the Workflow to find the desired Fixups.

After analyzing a PDF file, certain Fixups often need to be applied to the Print Item so that the file is then ready for printing. Fixups can be made manually in a PDF Editor of your choice. Alternatively, individual Fixups or several Fixups in a Fixup Chain can be applied in the Workflow. The only question users should ask themselves is: "Which Fixups can be used for the Data Preparation?" Based on this question, the possibility to find the Fixups you are looking for as quickly as possible was created. In addition to simply typing in search terms, you can set various filters to limit the hit list. The logic we use here is explained below.

2. Filter Options

The most extensive possibilities when searching for Fixups are available in the Data Preparation tab. In other dialogs you can only search for favorites, categories and actions, in the Data Preparation tab you can also limit your search using search terms. Applying a filter, further filters results for selected categories, actions and searches.

The filter options in the Data Preparation tab are arranged on the left side of this area. Both in the Fixups and Custom Fixups sections, results for the applied filters are displayed.

Figure 1: The Data Preparation tab displaying search options for Fixups.

PMS WebGui :: Data Preparation

2.1. Filters

By entering search criteria in the Filter [1] input field, a list of results is displayed showing the name of the Fixup [2] as well as the corresponding description for the Fixup [3]. You can see that entering a keyword would lead to better results. The difficulty here is to know which keywords need to be entered in the given language, to provide the desired result.

Figure 2: The Filter area provides possibilities to search for Fixups.

PMS WebGui :: Data Preparation

Entering keywords will limit the Filter results

Note that by entering a keyword in the filter input field, you will limit the results being displayed in the list. These results are based on the keywords set in Category, Action and Search as well as based on the filter set in Favorites.

2.2. Favorites

In the Favorites area, only the option Show favorites only can be activated. This reduces the list of displayed Fixups to those that have already been marked as favorites. More detailed information on how to handle favorites can be found in the article Setting and Applying Favorites.

Figure 3: The Favorites area in detail

2.3. Categories

There are currently ten criteria to choose from in the Categories area. Because this area uses checkboxes, search results can be narrowed down by selecting more than one category. The following criteria are available:

  • Color – Finds Fixups that deal with the creation, modification and deletion of Spot Colors and Color Spaces.
  • Font – Finds Fixups that embed missing fonts, convert fonts to paths, and fix font encoding issues.
  • Image – Finds Fixups that deal with compression, recalculating resolution, and image content generation.
  • Layer – Finds Fixups that deal with creating, renaming, flattening and deleting, as well as hiding / showing layers. Note that deleting layers also deletes the objects that are on the corresponding layer. When hiding, the objects remain, but they are not used in the output.
  • LFP – Finds special Fixups that are typically aimed at the Large Format Printing industry.
  • Object – Finds Fixups that create, move to other layers, modify or delete objects. Also displays those Fixups that deal with creating or changing Dielines.
  • Packaging - Finds specific Fixups that are typically assigned to the label and folding carton business.
  • Pages – Finds Fixups that deal with rotating, flipping, deleting, splitting and merging pages, as well as creating and modifying bleed.
  • Page Boxes – Finds Fixups that deal with setting, synchronizing, modifying and deleting page geometry boxes (TrimBox, BleedBox, ArtBox, CropBox and MediaBox).
  • Page Content – Finds Fixups that deal with scaling, flipping, and rotating page content, as well as converting notes and flattening transparencies.
  • Text – Finds Fixups that deal with extracting text using OCR or from barcodes, as well as replacing text.

Figure 4: The Category section with criteria for filtering Fixups.

PMS WebGui :: Data Preparation

Fixups are assigned to one Category

Note that each Fixup can only be assigned to one Category.

2.4. Actions

There are currently 20 criteria to choose from in the Action area. Since these are options, filtering can only be performed based on the selected criteria. The following criteria are available:

  • Add – Finds Fixups that deal with adding hemstitches, backgrounds, embedding fonts as well as moving objects to other layers.
  • Apply – Finds Fixups that deal with setting the scale factor as well as applying color correction curves.
  • Change – Finds Fixups that deal with changing color values, overprint status, as well as changes in page geometry boxes.
  • Clip – Finds Fixups that deal with clipping bleed as well as existing Spot Color channels (white channel).
  • Compress – Finds Fixups that deal with compressing as well as changing the resolution.
  • Convert – Finds Fixups that deal with converting color spaces, converting text to paths as well as converting objects such as text as well as objects to an image.
  • Create – Finds Fixups that deal with creating dielines, bleeds, production allowances, etc, as well as deriving page geometry boxes depending on page elements.
  • Crop – Finds Fixups that crop documents to the visible area.
  • Delete – Finds Fixups that deal with deleting pages, page geometry boxes, layers, print marks, separations, bleeds as well as Spot Colors.
  • Downsample – Finds Fixups that deal with changing the resolution.
  • Embed - Finds Fixups that deal with the embedding of fonts.
  • Fill - Finds Fixups that deal with filling backgrounds or filling printed objects with a selected Technical Color.
  • Flatten – Finds Fixups that deal with flattening transparencies as well as changing the overprint status.
  • Hide – Finds Fixups that deal with hiding layers.
  • Impose – Finds Fixups that deal with extending print items on the selected side.
  • Make Visible – Finds Fixups that deal with blending in layers, bringing objects to the foreground, and rendering annotations.
  • Merge – Finds Fixups that deal with merging layers and pages.
  • Mirror - finds Fixups that deal with the mirroring of pages and their content.
  • Optimize – Finds fixups that deal with PDF file optimization, therefore reducing the file complexity and in processing.
  • Place - Finds Fixups that deal with the placement of PDF files or individual pages.
  • Rename – Finds Fixups that deal with renaming Spot Colors as well as layers.
  • Rotate - Finds Fixups that deal with the rotation and/or mirroring of pages or Print Items.
  • Scale – Finds Fixups that deal with scaling pages as well as their page content and scale factor.
  • Split – Finds Fixups that deal with splitting long documents into a multi–page document.
  • Transform – Finds Fixups that deal with page rotation, flipping and page orientation.

Figure 4: The Action area with criteria for filtering displayed Fixup results.

PMS WebGui :: Data Preparation

An extensive selection of search terms is available in the Search area. As these are checkboxes, the search for Fixups can be restricted by selecting several search terms. Which Fixups are displayed by selecting a search term is self-explanatory.

Figure 6: The Search area with criteria for filtering displayed Fixup results.

PMS WebGui :: Data Preparation

2.6. Set and Delete Filters

Setting a filter can be extended by multiple activation of checkboxes in the category and search area. However, activating checkboxes across areas restricts the search. Setting a filter in the Actions area restricts the search to the desired process. As these are radio buttons, the list of Fixups can only be limited to one Action at a time.

To delete a filter, you should press the corresponding Remove Filter [6] button. If you want to delete all filters in all areas, the trick is to select a different tab, e.g. Print Data [4] and then switch to Data Preparation [5].

Figure 7: The header of the Data Preparation tab.

PMS WebGui :: Data Preparation

Article update: Workflow 1.17.0 - 02/2024

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Next Article 1.4 Applying Fixups
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