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M A G A Z I N E 95
March 2017
Pasteboard Pointers Roger Black GreenLight
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Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 95 To purchase this issue or subscribe, visit indesignsecrets.com/issues
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By Claudia McCue
InReview: GreenLight
Taking preflight to the next level
GreenLight
circularsoftware.com
£25–£2500 per month
Mac only, InDesign CS6–CC 2015
Rating:
GreenLight
from Circular Software
Custom InDesign
production checks
Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 95 In a large production environment, such
as a book publishing house or a magazine publisher, it’s important that content
creators follow clear rules for document
creation and management. Of course, working with templates can ensure that documents get off to a healthy start, but—let’s
face it—a lot can happen between the
first mouse click and the last. A content
creator may stray from the beaten path to
place low-res images, forget to stretch a
tint block to bleed, or name the saved file
something that doesn’t meet the production team’s naming conventions. We’ve
all seen (or, gasp! saved) things named
New_absolute_final_final_I_swear.indd.
Circular Software’s offerings—CircularFLO,
MasterPlan, and GreenLight—are tailored
to publishers, and all intended to aid efficient production. In this article, I’ll take you
on a tour of GreenLight, which is suited for
use in publication groups that need to standardize document creation and avoid costly
mistakes. While it could be useful for an individual, or in small groups, in my opinion it’s
really more appropriate for mid-size to large
groups.
Introducing GreenLight
GreenLight is not a plug-in; it’s a separate
desktop utility that communicates with
InDesign CS6 or later, in order to examine
documents and report on their status. It is a
Mac-only application, requiring OS X 10.6 or
newer. Sorry, PC users: there is no Windows
version planned.
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InReview: GreenLight
If you want to play along, download
the seven-day trial. After that first week, of
course, you’ll need to subscribe. You can
subscribe on a month-to-month or yearly
basis (you can get 12 months for the price
of 10).
When you subscribe, you’ll initially
choose a client name for identification,
and will be assigned a unique client number. Each client company (that’s you) has a
designated Admin User with the ability to
create and modify an unlimited number of
GreenLight checklists. Only users who are
assigned as part of a client will have access
to the client-wide checklists and output settings. In other words, other users can’t get
access to your checklists.
A checklist is a collection of defined document checks—the Admin User combines
the individual checks into checklists. If you
need a new kind of check that’s not available, Circular Software may be able to create
additional custom checks for you (depending on your license type).
Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 95 The Admin User can add up to 12 users
under the license. For more than 12 concurrent users, GreenLight offers a web-based
admin system.
What GreenLight Does
A GreenLight “Check” is a set of parameters
against which a document is compared.
Checks might include document dimensions, whether bleed is met and contents
fall within the approved live area, and the
resolution of placed images. Of course,
InDesign’s built-in Preflight function can do
much of that already.
But GreenLight goes well beyond that. It
can check to see if the document is named
according to an in-house standard convention, that graphics are linked to a predefined
location, and that images have the correct
color profile. It can be set to squawk if, for
example, the designer places an unwanted
file type, such as GIF.
GreenLight starts with a wide array of
general checks, but what sets it apart is the
ability to customize, via Client Checks, to
police a particular production environment,
and even be tailored further to certain parts
of a production cycle. For example, in a
book production environment, GreenLight
could be set up to recognize that documents named “Textbook_p21.indd”
should have .125 inch bleed and not use
spot colors, whereas a document named
“Textbook_COV.indd” should use PANTONE
874 and have .1875 inch bleed.
How would your local client app
know these things? When you sign up
for GreenLight’s service, a set (or sets) of
checks will be generated for you, based on
your production needs. When you launch
GreenLight, you’ll see the small GreenLight
floating panel (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The GreenLight panel
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InReview: GreenLight
Immediately, your client app connects
to the GreenLight server, checking to see
if there are any changes to the options
available in your current checklist. To start
the document check, you must first save
the InDesign document. Then click on the
GreenLight floating panel. When the check
is complete, GreenLight adds a new layer in
your InDesign document, and builds a table
on the new layer, over on the Pasteboard;
this is how GreenLight displays the results of
the document check (Figure 2). As you run
more GreenLight checks, the table dynamically updates with the current results.
If you want to know more about
GreenLight’s findings, choose the Type
tool and select a row in the report table,
and then click the GreenLight app panel. A
floating alert appears, describing the issue
and giving you options. For example, if
the error involves image resolution, you’re
given the option to mark an image as being
OK (an exception), confirming that the low
Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 95 Figure 2: The GreenLight app creates a new layer in the document and creates the report table in that layer.
The GreenLight report table is color-coded: a green row means the document is in compliance with that
requirement. An orange row indicates a problem. “False” in the right column means that the document does
not meet that stipulation.
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InReview: GreenLight
resolution is not OK, or telling GreenLight to
stop checking (Figure 3).
Note: If you check for more information
on a row that’s reporting on spot color
content, you’ll notice that GreenLight itself
generates two new spot colors—GreenLight
and RedLight (Figure 4). Just ignore those
extraneous colors—they’re used only by the
GreenLight table out in the pasteboard, and
won’t have any impact on the output of the
document.
Each report dialog provides an option to
view more information. Click that button,
and you’re taken to the Circular Software
website, where you’ll see buttons listed for
issues that have been flagged, labeled with
the name of the problem in abbreviated
form (Figure 5). Click on a button, and you’ll
see a brief definition of the problem.
Exporting GreenLight-Stamped PDFs
As you know, it’s one thing to create a good
InDesign document, and yet another to
Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 95 Figure 4: GreenLight adds two spot colors (GreenLight and
RedLight). Don’t worry; this won’t affect output, because
they’re used only by the report table on the pasteboard.
Figure 3: If you designate some objects as exceptions to
the GreenLight check, you’ll see a record of this in the last
row of the report table. Here, I’ve earmarked three images as
“OK,” even though their resolution falls below the threshold.
GreenLight won’t object to them in future checks, but
includes mention of them in the gray bottom row.
ensure that a PDF version of it exports correctly. Fortunately, GreenLight can help with
that, too. In addition to providing preflight
capabilities, GreenLight can control PDF creation according to preset parameters set up
by the Admin User. Once a file is “all green,”
a GreenLight user can quickly export to PDF
Figure 5: If GreenLight flags a problem, and you'd like
more information, click on that row in the report label.
GreenLight runs the check again, then displays an
explanatory alert. Click the "More Info" button to see a
definition of the problem.
through GreenLight using settings including job options and destination folder. The
PDF will display a GreenLight logo outside
the bleed edge of the page, confirming that
the PDF was created from a file that passed
muster.
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InReview: GreenLight
Comparing GreenLight
to the Alternatives
GreenLight isn’t the only game in town, of
course. InDesign’s own built-in Preflight
function comes at no additional cost,
and of course it works on Windows, too.
Naturally, it can only check InDesign documents, but it is somewhat customizable,
offering checks for image resolution issues,
overset text, font types, and compliance
with bleed settings. Like GreenLight, it can
police document dimensions and spotcolor usage, but, unlike GreenLight, it can’t
report image file types or react to document filenames being out of compliance
with an organization’s rules. Markzware’s
FlightCheck (Mac only) has long been
an industry standard, and checks a wide
variety of file types—including InDesign
(v. 1.9–CC 2017), Acrobat, Illustrator,
QuarkXPress—even ancient PageMaker.
GreenLight works only with InDesign.
However, FlightCheck lacks some of
GreenLight’s proactive production controls,
Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 95 such as checks that respond to document
file-naming conventions.
It’s not entirely fair to compare pricing
between products with different feature
sets, but note that FlightCheck’s subscription cost is $199/year (Perpetual: $399) and
you can see GreenLight’s current pricing in
Table 1.
Is GreenLight a Go?
up to 25
up to 12
£1,000 ($1,250.00)
If you’re an individual, or part of a group
that produces a wide array of documents,
GreenLight is probably not an appropriate
solution for you; InDesign’s built-in Preflight
or Markzware’s FlightCheck should serve
you well.
But organizations that must adhere to
strict, templated production rules could
definitely benefit from GreenLight’s ability
to police document creation and content,
ensuring that designers don’t stray from
important in-house rules as they’re constructing textbooks, magazines, or other
highly-standardized documents.
up to 50
up to 12
£1,750 ($2,187.50)
n
up to 100
25
£2,500 ($3,125.00)
Claudia McCue is the author of Real World Print Production
with Adobe Creative Suite Applications, and the presenter
for a number of print-related Lynda.com courses. When
not chained to the computer, she can be found riding her
motorcycle on country roads; she swears it’s the cure for
writer’s block.
Individuals, Small Teams
Users
Additional
Price/month
Client Checks
1
0
£25 ($31.25)
2
0
£50 ($62.50)
3
0
£75 ($93.75)
4–5
0
£100 ($125.00)
6–8
up to 3
£200 ($250.00)
9–12
up to 6
£300 ($375.00)
Medium and Large Teams
Add’l users
over 100
£5 ($6.25)
Table 1: GreenLight Pricing (mind you, the £/$ exchange
rate varies by the minute).
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