Business News
Enfocus announces PitStop Pro 10
Wednesday 08. September 2010 - A new version of the popular PDF preflight and editing plug-in includes extended color management and new collaboration features.
Enfocus announces PitStop Pro 10, a major upgrade of its long established and widely used PDF editing and preflighting application. This latest version offers customers improved color management, user-requested features, and expanded collaborative working tools.
First introduced in 1997, PitStop Pro has long been recognized for its many PDF editing features and its user-friendly design, enabling easy management and customization of presets and tools. Under the ‘You first’ commitment to the customers, Enfocus has listened to extensive user feedback and further expanded these features in PitStop Pro 10. The new version will let users work faster with greater precision and allow them to save significant amounts of time. PitStop Pro 10 also concentrates on making color management more accessible for everybody.
Additionally, for users in a collaborative working environment with multiple copies of PitStop Pro 10, the completely new PitStop Workgroup Manager allows central management and standardization of preflight settings, Action Lists, Workspaces, etc. This is available with Floating Licenses, where copies of PitStop Pro can be installed on any number of terminals within a local area network, but only a certain number can be used simultaneously.[1] <#_ftn1>
Big on Color
PitStop Pro 10 includes new and improved tools for color handling, with a wide range of color management settings. “Handling color issues can be tedious. Thats why Enfocus wants to make it as easy as possible,” says Elli Cloots, Director of Product Management at Enfocus.
The new version of PitStop Pro enables users to manage color settings in an easy and straightforward manner. Multiple color management presets can now be saved for quick and accurate application when needed. The Color Picker panel can be used to import users own color libraries and includes the latest PANTONE Plus libraries. The preset manager can display all color libraries and users can add favorites and search for colors.
PitStop Pro allows to automatically check for ink coverage issues while taking into account transparency, overprint settings, overlapping items and layers. Black Point Compensation is supported when using the Adobe CMM or Little CMS and you can choose the Acrobat settings directly from the PitStop Pro Preference Panel.
Faster and easier in every aspect
A new interface makes the creation of Action Lists easier than ever. Action Lists are the automated sequence of checking, automatic editing and fixing in PitStop Pro. The new interface offers drag and drop functionality and when selecting an operator (the And, Or, Not options), it highlights the items that it will apply to. Through grouping, you can structure your Action List logically and comment on the different Actions.
QuickRuns, allowing users to run repetitive tasks through a single click, which apply changes across all the pages in a document, can now also include Global Changes and became exchangeable.
A strong answer to customers’ requests
With the new version, Enfocus has responded to feature requests from its users. Examples are improvements to Design Layouts, management of page boxes and guides, a new ability to search within the Font Picker and show RGB values as 0-255, etc. For graphical editing its also now easier to move objects over a bigger distance through a shortcut.
“We have tried to implement features to improve efficiency for every user,” says Cloots. “Volume customers will be helped by the PitStop Workgroup manager. Basic users will find the color handling a lot easier and we have implemented some smaller feature requests for them also. Advanced users will also see the benefit in color and they will like the new way of creating Action Lists.”
PitStop Pro 10 runs as a plug-in with Adobe Acrobat 8 and the latest Adobe Acrobat 9 and supports the current Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Windows 7 operating systems as well as older systems. PitStop Server, the automated PDF preflighting, correction and certification tool that shares the Enfocus preflight library, has also been updated to version 10. [2] <#_ftn2>
Availability and pricing
PitStop Pro 10 will become commercially available in October 2010. With immediate effect, a grace period commences whereby buyers of PitStop Pro get a version 09 key and will receive a free upgrade when version 10 becomes available.
Customers using PitStop Pro 7.x get the last chance until the end of the year to upgrade their version. From today on until the release there is a special pricing of EUR 199 when pre-ordering the upgrade to version 10. After the release the upgrade price is EUR 259. As of January 1st, 2011 they wont be able to upgrade anymore.
Starting today until the release customers, both single users and volume users, with more recent products (PitStop Pro 08 and 09) can benefit from discounted upgrade pricing to reward their loyalty when pre-ordering their upgrade to PitStop Pro 10.