New PitStop Extreme adds features not found in longstanding PitStop Pro Acrobat plug-in—including text-editing and document handling extras.This week, Belgian software developer Enfocus shipped
PitStop Extreme, the long-rumored standalone version of its Acrobat plug-in
PitStop Pro. Both products are designed for print facilities that use PDF workflows and need sophisticated editing tools to fix files en route to the presses.
PitStop Extreme, which costs $3,499 new and; $2,799 for current PitStop Pro 08 users, adds text-editing features found in the multipage PDF editing application Neo from Enfocus parent company EskoArtwork. PitStop Extreme also gets a more efficient document viewing and handling interface than can be achieved via the PitStop-Acrobat combination, says David van Driessche, director of Enfocus marketing.
The text-editing feature combination is designed to make life easier for printers, who often struggle with the "locked-down" aspect of PDF files when clients call in with last-minute alterations.
"Text editing in both Acrobat and in PitStop, to be honest, was always a little bit painful," van Driessche says. "In Extreme, you can edit multiple paragraphs at the same time, and you can even link text blocks together so you have reflow on the same page."
Acknowledging that some users will feel more comfortable keeping the status quo for some PDF operations—and might not be ready to immediately turn their backs on workflow methods based on PitStop Pro—he says that PitStop Extreme users get a copy of the PitStop Pro plug-in included in the package, so they can have it both ways.
"Being a plug-in for Acrobat is nice, because you can work within a familiar environment and interface," van Driessche says. "At the same time...the standalone app is not burdened with the user interface from Acrobat, which is a lot faster to edit with. You can do a number of things more efficiently."
After years of considering spinning off PitStop as its own app, what made Enfocus finally pull the trigger? Market demand, mostly, van Driessche says.
The publishing industry—from printers and service bureaus to software developers like Adobe and Enfocus—have tried to push the responsibility for preflighting PDF files upstream, trying to make designers more responsible for ironing out errors in PDFs before they get to the printer.
Despite their semi-successful efforts, which include Adobe hardwiring recent versions of Acrobat with popular preflighting tools from callas, a recent Enfocus trade survey shows that little or no preflighting is being done on a fifth of PDF files printers receive.
Now, van Driessche says, printers are more likely to want more robust tools like PitStop Extreme—new, yet familiar to PitStop Pro users—to be able to fix PDFs themselves.
