Definition: After designing a document comes prepress. It is the process of preparing digital files for printing. Prepress tasks will vary depending on file complexity and printing method but some may include double-checking fonts, making sure graphics are in the right format, preparing camera ready artwork, creating color separations, adding crop marks, trapping, imposition, producing prepress proofs, and obtaining film for creating printing plates. Some prepress tasks, such as trapping and proofs, are best handled by a service bureau or commercial printer. Hand-in-hand with prepress is preflight. A preflight checklist (yes, like airplane pilots use) is simply a final check to insure that you've done your prepress tasks.
Also Known As: preflight
Alternate Spellings: pre-press
Examples:
"After a designer is happy with her font, image, and color choices and has everything arranged just the way she wants it to look, it's still not ready to print -- go to press. During the prepress stage she has to make sure that the desktop publishing file has all the necessary information in it, properly arranged, so that her design will print the way she intended."
