User Manual

1.3 Finding Fixups

Updated on

In this article, you will learn

  • how to perform targeted searches for Fixups, and
  • which methods are available for the user.

1. Introduction

In the Workflow a wide range of standard Fixups are available. To determine whether a suitable Fixup already exists for a specific issue, simply enter relevant keywords to perform a quick search. Familiarizing yourself once with the full range of available Fixups can help you save valuable time in day-to-day work. The Workflow offers various options for efficiently identifying the appropriate Fixup.

After analyzing or checking a print file, specific Fixups often need to be applied to make the Print Item ready for printing. These corrections can either be made manually in the PDF Editor or by executing individual predefined Fixups within the Workflow. The central question users should ask themselves in the Workflow is: "Which Fixup will achieve the desired result?". To help answer this question, a powerful search function has been integrated. It enables users to find the right Fixup quickly and efficiently. In addition to a traditional keyword search, a variety of filters are available to narrow down the search results precisely. The logic behind the search and filter functions is explained below in detail.

2. Filter Options

The most extensive search functions for Fixups are available in the tab Data Preparation of the detail view of a Print Item, as well as in the dialog Apply Fixup when Fixups are to be applied to selected Articles or Print Items. The following filter and search options are available:

  • Text Search [1] – Searches Fixup names based on the entered keywords
  • Category [3] – Selects an entry from the predefined list of categories
  • Action [2] – Selects an entry from the predefined list of actions
  • Property [4] – Filters Fixups based on specific predefined properties
  • Show Favorites only [5] – Displays only those Fixups marked as favorites
  • Show "Custom Fixups" only [6] – Limits the list to Fixups uploaded by the user

All filter options can be combined to efficiently narrow down what is often a very long list of Fixups to only relevant entries.

Figure 1: The tab Data Preparation with options for searching for Fixups

Filters narrows down the list of results

Please note that applying filters will automatically restrict the list of displayed Fixups. This applies to both the selected keywords in the Category, Action, and Properties fields, as well as activated options such as Show Favorites only and Show "Custom Fixups" only.

2.1. Text Search

Entering a term into the search bar [7] searches the names of the Fixups [8]. To ensure the correct Fixup is found, it is important that users are familiar with the keywords used in the Workflow and enter them in the appropriate language that corresponds to the issue they are trying to resolve. The number of matches – i.e., how often the entered term appears in Fixup names – is indicated by the number before the "slash" [9].

Figure 2: The tab Data Preparation with an active text search

2.2. Filtering by "Category"

The dropdown menu of the section Category [3] (Figure 1) provides predefined terms that can be used to filter the result list by thematic focus. A category can be selected from the dropdown menu to refine the Fixup search. The following categories are available:

  • Color – Includes Fixups for creating, modifying, or removing Spot Colors, as well as managing Color Spaces.
  • Font – Filters Fixups that embed missing Fonts, convert Fonts to paths, or correct Font encodings.
  • Image – Filters Fixups related to compression, resolution recalculation, and the generation of image content.
  • Layer – Finds Fixups dealing with the creation, renaming, flattening and deletion of Layers, as well as toggling Layer visibility.
  • LFP – Contains specialized Fixups commonly used in Large Format Printing (LFP).
  • Object – Filters Fixups that create objects, modify, move, or delete objects. This includes Fixups for creating or editing Dielines.
  • Packaging – Filters specialized Fixups commonly used in the label and folding carton production.
  • Page – Filters Fixups for rotating, mirroring, deleting, splitting, or merging pages, as well as setting or adjusting Bleed.
  • PageBox – Refers to Fixups that set, synchronize, modify, or delete PageBoxes (TrimBox, BleedBox, ArtBox, CropBox and MediaBox).
  • Page Content – Filters Fixups that scale, mirror, or rotate Page Content, convert annotations, or flatten transparencies.
  • Text – Filters Fixups that extract text using OCR or from barcodes, or that replace text.

Figure 3: The dropdown menu of the section Category in detail

Fixups are assigned to only one Category

Please note that each Fixup is assigned to one Category only. Therefore, selecting a Category will display only those Fixups that are explicitly associated with that specific Category. Assigning a Fixup to multiple Categories is not possible.

2.3. Filtering by "Action"

The section Action [2] (Figure 1) also provides a wide range of predefined terms. A specific action can be selected from the dropdown menu to refine the search for Fixups. The following options are available:

  • Add – Finds Fixups for adding pole pockets, grommets, labels, backgrounds, embedding fonts, replacing text, or moving objects to other layers.
  • Apply – Finds Fixups that apply scaling factors, color correction curves, or tone value adjustments.
  • Change – Finds Fixups related to changing color values, overprint settings, or adjusting PageBoxes.
  • Clip – Finds Fixups for masking Bleed areas or an existing Spot Color Channel (e.g., White, Varnish).
  • Compress – Finds Fixups for compressing content or adjusting image resolution.
  • Convert – Finds Fixups that convert color spaces, convert texts to outlines, or convert objects such as annotations into images.
  • Create – Finds Fixups that create Dielines, Bleed, production marks, grommets, preview images, Step & Repeat or Tiling patterns, or derive PageBoxes based on the page content.
  • Crop – Finds Fixups that crop documents to the visible area or defined size, and remove overlapping objects to reduce file size.
  • Delete – Finds Fixups that remove pages, PageBoxes, layers, output conditions, print marks, separations, Bleed, or Spot Colors.
  • Downsample – Finds Fixups that adjust or change image resolution.
  • Fill – Finds Fixups that fill backgrounds or printed objects with selected Technical Colors.
  • Flatten – Finds Fixups that flatten transparencies, resolve XObjects or adjust overprint behavior.
  • Hide – Finds Fixups related to hiding layers.
  • Impose – Finds Fixups that extend Print Items on a selected page.
  • Increase – Finds Fixups that enlarge Spot Color Channels.
  • Make Visible – Finds Fixups for showing layers, bringing objects to the foreground, or rendering annotations.
  • Merge – Finds Fixups that merge layers or pages.
  • Mirror – Finds Fixups that mirror pages and/or their content.
  • Optimize – Finds Fixups that optimizes PDF files to reduce processing complexity.
  • Place – Finds Fixups that place PDF files or pages and merge the page content.
  • Reduce – Finds Fixups that deal with the flattening of transparencies, dissolving XObjects and adjusting the overprint behavior.
  • Rename – Finds Fixups that rename Spot Colors.
  • Rotate – Finds Fixups that rotate and/or mirror pages or Print Items.
  • Scale – Finds Fixups that scale pages or their content and apply a scaling factor.
  • Split – Finds Fixups that split long documents into multi-page files or extract parts of a Print Item and move them to new pages.
  • Transform – Finds Fixups for rotating, mirroring, or aligning pages.

Figure 4: The dropdown menu of the section Action in detail

2.4. Filtering by "Property"

The section Property [4] (Figure 1) offers an extensive selection of search terms. The desired term can be selected from the dropdown menu to specifically search for the corresponding Fixup. Which Fixups are displayed based on the selected search term is self-explanatory.

Figure 5: The dropdown menu of the section Property in detail

2.5. Displaying "Show Favorites only"

By selecting the option Show Favorites only [5] (Figure 1), the list of Fixups is limited to those entries you have previously marked as Favorites.

Figure 6: The filtered list of Fixups marked as Favorites

2.6. Displaying "Show Custom Fixups only"

By selecting the option Show "Custom Fixups" only [6] (Figure 1), the list of Fixups is limited to those Fixups that you have previously created and uploaded to the Workflow.

Figure 7: The filtered list of Custom Fixups

3. Setting and Clearing Filters

Filters can be set in the following ways:

  • By entering a search term in the text field,
  • By selecting an entry from the dropdown menus Category, Action, and Property,
  • By enabling the options Show Favorites only and Show "Custom Fixups" only.

Filters can be cleared as follows:

  • By deleting the entered text in the search field,
  • By selecting the option Clear All [10] in the dropdown menus Category, Action, and Property,
  • By disabling the active filter options Show Favorites only and Show "Custom Fixups" only with a simple click on the respective icon.

Figure 8: The header area of the tab Data Preparation

Combining Filter Options

Please note that all available filter options can be combined with each other. This allows you to find the desired Fixup quickly and precisely.

If no Fixups appear in the result list, this is most likely because the selected combination of filters is either not meaningful or there is currently no suitable Fixup available for that combination.

Article update: Workflow 1.20.1 – 04/2025

Previous Article 1.2 Setting and Applying Favorites for Fixups
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