Prepress

PitStop 2020 – The update for a full overview of your prepress team is available today

Wednesday 29. April 2020 - Enfocus, the market leader in PDF quality control, advanced PDF editing and workflow automation for the graphic arts industry, announces the release of PitStop Pro and PitStop Server 2020, the much-copied but never-before-seen popular PDF quality control and repair tool for prepress. Enfocus market leadership is built on listening to the needs of its customers and then further expanding and refining the technologies that make up its leadership position. PitStop 2020 is no exception.

“The new versions of PitStop Pro and PitStop Server 2020 have a long list of new features and improvements. The features now include innovations, new automation capabilities, enhanced preflight checks and corrections. There are also new tools for working with vector graphics. Many of these enhancements were based on customer feedback, which has helped Enfocus maintain PitStop’s position as a must-have for print service providers,” said Andrew Bailes-Collins, Senior Product Manager, Enfocus
PitStop now offers a complete overview
Highlights include an innovative, patent-pending Enfocus technology that uses computer vision techniques. PitStop Pro and Server can now “see” the visual content of a PDF file. This means that PitStop can search for images and graphic shapes such as logos to check whether or not they are present in a PDF file. This technology can even identify cropped images or partial images in a file, and there are also options for size and rotation. This new technology is especially valuable when files are subject to certain legal or design restrictions such as corporate identity or compliance regulations.
“The new computer vision feature and the ability to track raster elements to create a vector shape are valuable additions to Enfocus PitStop. PitStop 2020 enables us to further improve PDF quality checks and corrections in all business processes”. – Matthew Kay, Workflow Specialist, Bluetree Group, Rotherham, United Kingdom
Tracking raster in vectors
Also new in PitStop 2020 is the ability to track raster elements to create a vector shape. Customers will find this especially useful when creating coatings, underprints or digital cutting contours.
“Tracking objects” and “User-defined color field palette” functions take PitStop to a new level. I can now vectorize a logo for paths, create an offset for the path, save custom registrations and Thru-Cut color fields, and create a scalable, print-ready, editable file – all without leaving PitStop!”. – Amybeth Menendez, Print Workflows Assistant Manager, Macmillan Publishers, New York, USA
Other highlights
With PitStop 2020, you can overlay one PDF document over another and merge them into a single document, using variables for placement, resizing and opacity options.
“In case no one has thanked you for the PDF overlay function yet – big mistake! It’s a big deal for us! We get PDFs from our design team on the East Coast. We’ve always spent endless hours creating an InDesign script that outputs three different PDFs, one for each version. Now I can take the ONE PDF and get all three with Switch! That’s really a big hit! The scaling, the adding of punching lines, the color selection via the color field – it only takes about 3 seconds! – Chris Prough, Managing Director, Domestic Platform Digital/Graphics Processing, Innovairre Communications, Iowa, USA
Text search and replace is added as an action list feature in PitStop 2020. As one of the most requested features by customers, it allows users to automate the search and replace of text with variables in PitStop Pro and PitStop Server. A completely new bleed check is also one of the major improvements, as it uses a page-based approach rather than object-based technology as in older versions. In addition, the addition of copied graphics and variable pages is now possible, greatly increasing the automation capabilities of PitStop Server, especially in a switch environment.
“For me, Enfocus PitStop 2020 is not an upgrade, but an evolution. It takes preflight to a whole new level. It’s a must-have, not only for print companies, but also specifically for large format printing.” – Degrande Koen, Support Engineer, Igepa Belux nv, Aalter, Belgium
Further details
PitStop 2020 with 20 new action lists Many existing actions have been extended with the possibility to use variables, which makes them very powerful during automation A comprehensive list of new features and improvements, as well as a video with highlights, are available on the “What’s New in PitStop Pro” page.