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Proofing Tool - PDF Output

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Level 2

5/9/23

Description - The Print Summary PDF download within Workfront’s Proofing tool creates a flat image of the proof with any comments and markups, and is used if the marked up proof needs to be circulated outside of the proofing tool itself. The reason the originally uploaded pdf with any markups made in the proofing tool needs to be extracted from Workfront, rather than viewed in the tool itself by the agencies making amends as a result of these mark ups, is the agencies often use other Adobe products and comparison tools which contain scripted (coded) elements to compare the original pdf to the marked up pdf, and amend original files where possible in a more automated way. Given Workfront is an Adobe product, it would be preferable to have a high quality Adobe PDF output which is compatible with other Adobe products to ensure consistency and ease of use. The rasterising of the marked up proof and addition of wide margins / summary page changes the structure of the file so much from the original that it makes it impossible to be run through scripting tools when comparing to the original document / pdf.

 

Why is this feature important to you - 

Having integrated Workfront into the organisation, we now have major issues in our in-house agency being able to use the system fully in the way we intended them to, i.e. collaborating with comms teams via the system, being able to download a marked up PDF once this has gone through the system, and then re-upload the amended document. We’d also like the agency to be able to use their comparison tools and quality check tools in order to negate risk in sending customer communications out incorrectly, and keep their working processes as automated as possible.

 

How would you like the feature to work - 

If a pdf is uploaded as a document to Workfront, then made into a proof, then circulated to reviewers & approvers for comment, we would like these comments to be applied to the original pdf as if they had been made by the reviewer in Adobe Acrobat or Reader, and make these comments available on the (original) downloaded pdf, without changing the way the original file looks or inflating the filesize (the print summary PDF screenshot / rasterization process can inflate the filesize by upwards of 20x). Ultimately we need multiple reviewers to be able to comment / collaborate / review one file in a similar way to how several users can on a shared PDF in document cloud, but from within the WF application and also allowing them the ability to record an approval decision.

 

Current Behaviour - 

As it stands, the proofing tool produces a flat image file containing mark ups. Our agencies cannot work with this in terms of using it in their comparison tool and quality checking tools. The PDF print summary therefore cannot be used due to it not being the original Adobe PDF. As such, users now have to use a workaround process in which they go offline and mark up the original PDF to send to the agency, even though they use the proofing tool for reviewer comment and approval.

5 Comments

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Level 2

5/9/23

I 100% agree, it would be so much better if the Proof document stayed in it's original format. Having the Proof flatten into an image once comments/annotations have been added to the proof makes comparisons and further work impossible. 

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5/9/23

Just so that we all can understand - why can't these individuals look at the PHQ proof - why does it have to be exported and reimported?

 

What is it about "proof comparison tool" in PHQ that doesn't work for your team?

 

Thanks!

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Level 2

5/10/23

Hi @Richard__Carlson 

I work with Lucy, who created this post.

That is a good question 

We work with a lot of external agencies creating marketing materials for customers and there's always a lot of back and forth RE: alterations to materials and we wanted to use the Proofing tool to manage this exchange.
Our agencies need to be able to export the document as was with the added annotations/mark ups. They need this ability so they can run checks with their scripting tools to pick up differences and compare the documents like for like. So unfortunately because the Proofing tool flattens the document into an image and decreases the original file size, the scripting tool that they use doesn't work.

I Hope that makes sense? And any ideas are very welcome!

Thanks