Seshat 1.9.2 says for every fix whether it changed the file, and finds empty bleed and white set to overprint

When Seshat is what a print shop's customers see, every answer has to be exact about what happened. Seshat 1.9.2 makes three answers plainer.

Every fix says whether it changed something

Each fix in the answer now has changed: true when it changed what the file prints, false when the file needed nothing from it. Seshat compares what the file prints before and after the fix: pages, drawings, pictures, colours, fonts, layers and the print profile. A file that is only written differently counts as unchanged. So a customer is never told that a fix was made when it was not, and a fix that changed nothing is not charged.

Fixes that rewrite the whole file (flattening transparency, turning text into outlines, lowering picture resolution, embedding fonts, cleaning up) no longer run when there is nothing for them to do. Before, lowering resolution on a file that needed none could even make the file larger.

Where the RGB is

The RGB finding now says whether the RGB is in pictures, in text or in shapes, with the pages of each. Telling a customer "your photos are in RGB" asks something different from "your logo is in RGB".

A shorter wait when Rekhu cannot be reached

The packages for Laravel and Node.js (0.12.0) try a call again after 2, 4 and 8 seconds when Rekhu cannot be reached. On an upload screen that is too long to wait, so the waits are now a setting: fewer, shorter or none.

Bleed that is there only on paper

A page can have a bleed in its boxes while the design stops at the trim. Seshat now looks at the printed page along each trim edge and reports the sides where ink stops at the trim with nothing beyond it, with the places. Adding bleed fills them by mirroring from the trim.

White set to overprint, as GWG asks

White text and shapes set to overprint are now reported even when they still print. The GWG specification does not allow them, because they vanish as soon as overprint is handled differently further on. The white knockout fix takes care of them.

RGB black on the black plate

RGB black (0, 0, 0) in text, lines and shapes now goes on the black plate only when a file is converted to CMYK. Converted through the print profile, it would become a four-colour black that blurs small text when the plates do not line up exactly.

A missing print profile

A file that names no print profile gets a note saying which profile it is checked for. With a GWG preset, a file that is not PDF/X-4 is an error that make_pdfx fixes.

Tested with deliberately broken files

Seshat is now tested with files that have one deliberate error per page, as preflight engines are tested. Each error has to be found on its own page, the fixes have to repair what they can without touching the other pages, and a clean PDF/X-4 file has to pass without a single error or warning. Those tests found two things, both fixed:

• Reduce ink read some CMYK JPEG pictures inverted. It could change photos that were not over the limit at all, and it skipped pictures stored with more than one filter.
• Thin shapes were measured too coarsely. A line exactly at the minimum width could be reported as too thin. Now only parts clearly under the minimum are reported, and a hairline is reported once.

Also in this version

Checks of files with many drawings are a little faster, because the spot colour lists are read once per file.