Since our group rarely recieves ‘native files’, all of our checks are done at the “post” stage of normalized PDF, using some of the products you’ve mentioned. We often find ourselves in the unpleasant position of trying to educate clients on how to perform a function they insist on performing – only to realize they aren’t interested in the lesson. Like many in pre-media, we have in fact learned to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Or at least a reasonable approximation of one.

The question asked about preflight and post flight is very good. I would rather see it as preflight rather than post flight. One would always call it as post flight as it has been carried after the process, but my opinion to this is Preflight, its always preflight.

Before starting any process, one preflights the job – checks if all the inputs are correct to start the process. He should know the next process where the output generated would serve as an input. On completion of the process, the output is preflighted considering the next process and not the process that one has completed. Hence I would rather call it preflight always rather than post flight. Does this make sense?