Courier Corporation: About Courier

December 2004

SPECIAL ISSUE: Courier FastPath Services

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Here Comes the NEW FastPath!

Get ready. We've made some very exciting changes to Courier FastPath, the popular suite of web-based services that makes doing business with Courier very easy. For several years now, the web services of Courier FastPath have provided our customers with an online gateway to a smoother workflow, improved communication with the plant, and the elimination of costly file errors. Now we are giving the Courier FastPath website (www.courierfastpath.com) a whole new look and some improved navigation. At the same time, we are incorporating a number of improvements, upgrades, and enhancements to File Check, Proof Check and Status Check — the three services that make up FastPath.

The FastPath web site now features this new and updated look. Improved navigation and other enhancements to the three FastPath services make it even easier to validate, submit, proof, and approve your files, and to track your jobs and inventory through production.

The FastPath Services At A Glance

All FastPath services are free, password secure, and available to all our customers at www.courierfastpath.com. Here's what they can do for you.

File Check is a quick and easy way for you to validate your files as error-free prior to submitting them to Courier. It's the best way to avoid costly delays. File Check can be used by designers, compositors, or anyone who handles your files prior to submission.

Proof Check is an extremely powerful and convenient Internet portal into Courier prepress that streamlines file submission, delivers failsafe remote proofing and approval, and enables timesaving online collaboration prior to manufacturing. Proof Check can be used by anyone involved with the prepress workflow.

Status Check lets you instantly view your job and paper inventory status 24/7. Its powerful yet simple query-based design allows you to search and sort to find exactly what you are looking for quickly and easily.

What's New in FastPath

	File Check
The new File Check runs as an application from your desktop. The first time you run it, you install the File Check icon onto your desktop — it takes just a few seconds. From then on you simply drag and drop your PDF files onto the icon to test them against Courier's inspection profiles. Once the files for your job have passed inspection, you put them all in a folder and drop the folder on the icon. File Check will then save a compressed archive of your job to your desktop. This archive is validated for production at Courier and can be transmitted quickly and easily to Courier using Proof Check.
	Proof Check
The expansion of Proof Check continues. It's now available for you to use for your jobs running at Westford and Kendallville, and it will soon be installed in Stoughton. As customers begin to use it more, they're discovering that it's far and away the most powerful FastPath service. Customers generally begin by using Proof Check to submit files because it's so much faster and easier than FTP, but they quickly learn to take advantage of its many other tremendous features. Remote proofing/approval capability saves time and money and provides valuable accountability, online collaboration provides unprecedented communication, and automated email notification ensures that nothing slips through the cracks. Finally, the user administration feature allows print buyers to set up and manage any number of Proof Check users for their account. This means that you can bring your compositors, designers, editors, and others into your prepress workflow in whatever way you see fit. The possibilities are endless.
	Status Check
Status Check now has a new graphic look that improves the onscreen readability of your job and inventory data and improves the user experience by making Status Check look and feel a lot more like the other FastPath services. There is also a major improvement just around the corner. In a few months Courier customers will be able to see their actual ship dates through Status Check, and they will be able to click through to details about the shipment, including tracking information.

Right From the Start Tip

Test files can be a very good way to make sure that your job will run smoothly through production, but you no longer need to spend a lot of time or any money on them because now there's a much better way. Instead of paying Courier to produce an inspection report and hard copy proofs for your test files, why not save time and money by using File Check and Proof Check? Create your test files and validate them with File Check, then upload and proof them using Proof Check. It's faster, it's easier...and it's absolutely free!

Tips of the Month are excerpted from Right from the Start: The book professional’s guide to preparing digital files for print production, Fifth Edition, published by Courier Corporation.

Courier Companies, Inc. · 15 Wellman Avenue · N. Chelmsford, MA 01863
Send your questions and comments to tfrench@courier.com