Part 3 of 3: Job Jackets and Project Files
Page 10

Defining Rules

If you select the Rules resource in the Job Jackets Manager and click the New Item button, the Edit Rule dialog box opens. Rules are defined by subject or the specific type of issue you want to check.

Once you've chosen the subject of the rule, you have to define the conditions that will be evaluated. The available conditions will change depending on the subject you selected for the rule.

You can't define a rule to include more than one subject; for example, you can't define a single rule to check text boxes and picture boxes for White backgrounds. You have to define individual rules for text boxes and picture boxes, which you can combine into a single rule set.

Rule conditions are cumulative; at this time there is no "or" logical operator. If you choose more than one condition, the rule will only look for elements that match all conditions of the rule.

Note: Rule conditions are cumulative; at this time there is no "or"
logical operator. If you choose more than one condition, the rule
will only look for elements that match all conditions of the rule. 

When you click Next, the next screen of the Edit Rule dialog box lists the specific parameters of each rule condition. Any condition can be set to "Is" (the default value) or "Is Not"; if you choose Is Not in the second column, the rule will look for anything that does not match the parameter you define.

The available parameters in this dialog box depend on the condition(s) you define. For example, if you are defining a text character text style condition, you can choose from a list of the type styles that can be applied in a QuarkXPress layout. If you define a picture asset condition, you can look for pictures that are Missing, Modified, or No Disk File.

Like rule conditions, parameters are also cumulative. If you define more than one parameter for a condition (by clicking the + button), the rule will only find elements that meet all parameters. Because there is no "or" logical operator, using multiple parameters is a good way to find very specific elements.

For example:
          Font Size Is Less Than 5 pt.
          Shade Is Greater Than 1%
          Shade Is Not Greater Than 5%

This rule would find very small text (less than 5 pt.) that is set to output at 1-5% shade — a potential nightmare for offset printing. It isn't particularly necessary to look for 0% shade (a knockout); doing so might return an unnecessarily large number of "errors" that aren't errors.

The list of potential combinations is extensive; we encourage you to explore the different choices to see what is available. The important thing to remember is that rule conditions and parameters are cumulative. Adding more conditions or parameters will narrow the results of the rule when you evaluate the layout — which might or might not be a good thing, depending on your needs.

When you click Next, you can type a description and instructions (which display when the layout is evaluated) in the final screen of the Edit Rule dialog box. This is a good way to tell users why something won't (or might not) work, and what they should do to fix the problem. Each rule can have one of three Policy settings:

• Prohibited rules are ones that must be fixed before a layout can be properly output (such as missing image files).
• Not Recommended rules are used to identify issues that probably will cause problems, such as image resolution lower than 300 DPI for an offset lithography job. In some cases, these issues can't be avoided (such as the screen shots in this article, which are almost all lower than 300 DPI simply because of the nature of screen shots). They should be corrected when possible, but will not prevent the layout from being output.
• Noted rules are issues worth reviewing, such as a layout that has fewer inks than the total number of inks specified for the job. Too few inks will not stop the workflow, but is noteworthy — perhaps you missed something or forgot to apply a spot color. Perhaps everything is fine, but it is worth a second look.

When you click Finish, the new rule is added to the job jacket.

 

Defining Rule Sets

After you have defined rules, you need to combine them into rule sets before you can attach them to a layout. If you select Rule Sets in the list of job-jacket resources and click the New Item button, the Edit Rule Set dialog box presents all of the rules that are available in the jacket. You can move specific rules into the set using the right-arrow button, or you can include all available rules.

Note: You should use indicative rule set names so you can
quickly tell what the set contains.

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©2007 Against the Clock. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.