Seshat 1.8 finds what non-designers get wrong, shows every plate and reports to the customer

Most print files that go wrong are not wrong in size or colour. They still say "Lorem ipsum", carry a stock photo's watermark, have black that will not dry, or a cut line that cuts a hole in the artwork. Seshat 1.8 finds those too, marks where they are, and tells the customer in plain words.

Is the file finished?

• Placeholders and stock photos. Text such as Lorem ipsum, "your text here" or XXX, and a picture bank's name on a photo, are found with the page and place.
• Crop marks drawn into the artwork, screenshots, empty pages.
• Damaged pictures that would stop the press, and invisible shapes some presses print anyway.
• Letters that will not print. Text that uses letters its font does not hold, which print as an empty box.
• Too thin to print. Parts of shapes thinner than print holds, and thin white on a dark ground that ink fills in, measured on the page itself.
• Details that cannot be right. Phone numbers, email and web addresses and dates that cannot be right, words typed twice, and spelling in seven languages, with a suggestion. Names and brands are left alone.

Black, cut lines and finishing

• Rich black. Small text in rich black prints blurred; Seshat sets it in black only. Large areas in four-colour black will not dry; fix_rich_black sets them to a rich black that does.
• Cut, crease, white, varnish and foil are recognised by their colour's or layer's name, and a cut line also by how it is used. One that would knock out the artwork is set to overprint.
• A cut line around a sticker. add_cut_contour draws it around the shape of the artwork, at the distance you choose.
• Cut lines cleaned. A cut line drawn twice would be cut twice; one that does not close stops the knife short. clean_cut_lines fixes both.
• Banners with grommets. With grommets in the order, add_grommets marks every corner and the edges at the spacing you choose.

Hidden things and barcodes

• Hidden layers, text under a picture, text the trim cuts through.
• Barcodes and QR codes are read, with their size and the white around them; one that may not scan is flagged. add_barcode places a QR code, EAN-13 or Code 128 in 100 % black.

For the customer and the shop

• A report for the customer. A PDF with every page and a numbered mark on each problem, in English, Dutch, German or French, or in your own words.
• Every plate. Cyan, magenta, yellow, black and each spot colour as a picture with its ink coverage, and a proof of the page with overprint, through the print profile.
• What changed. Two versions of a file compared: the words added and removed and the areas that look different, marked on the page.
• Recipes per product. A product's order and fixes kept by name, built on a preset such as sheet-fed offset, newspaper, large format or stickers. With strict colour, RGB is an error.

Better fixes

• Cut lines stay cut lines. Converting to CMYK keeps cut, crease, white, varnish and foil as spot colours, so they never print as ink.
• Your own bleed is kept. When a file has some bleed but not enough, the bleed it has stays as the designer made it; only the rest is mirrored.

Priced per file and per fix

Seshat is now priced the way a print shop thinks: per file and per fix, not per call.

• A file checked, up to 20 pages, is one price, with every check, the explanation, the report and the proof of that file included. Each page beyond 20 costs a little extra.
• Each fix made in the print-ready version is charged, at most five per file. A fix that changed nothing is free.
• Extras such as plates, versions compared and pages as pictures are charged per call. Recipes, codes and fonts are free.

The prices are in your account.

The new calls are in rekhu/core 0.10.0 for Laravel and @rekhu/core 0.10.0 for Node.js. See Every task, with examples.