Proof presentation

Nevermind1986

New Member
I have recently started work in a print management company and we often receive print ready PDFs from clients to inspect and send to print. However we are keen to add value to our service and one of the ways we want to do this is by creating more engaging proofs to send to the clients after we have checked their artwork. Currently we just send PDFs back to them, with cut lines etc on which give them an idea of how the finished product will look, however these are still just flat images on screen and sometimes clients can quite make the leap to imagining how it will appear; this could be in terms of folding or page order.

Some of the trade partners we send work to often supply us with proofs that can "animate" artwork, this could be booklets with interactive page turning, or 6pp leaflets that rotate and show pages folding as they move.

My question is if anyone has any resources that they can point me to that can help me create these interactive proofs to send back to my clients, to help to illustrate the final appearance of proofs on a 3D plane. I have found plenty of page turning tools online, but I would be keen to hear of peoples experiences and the practicality of these when it comes to sending a proof back to clients. I'd also be interested in anything that can do more than simply page turning eg. the rotating folded leaflets as touched on above.

I have also obtained some Javascript for page turning effects, with my basic coding knowledge I have been able to experiment with creating some page turning proofs, however the way this is set up it would have to be published online for a client to view on their browser - I would ideally like to know if there is an option that would package this to be emailed to clients rather than published. I know Indesign has recently removed the ability to export SWFs with page turning animations - this is the idea I am looking to find an alternative to. And again, the rotating folded flyer effect is of great interest to me.

So if anyone can recommend some information or resources that I could read up on, or some insight into how other companies achieve these results, I would greatly appreciate it.
 
All gimmicks. Forget about it.

You'll get clients who can't open the proofs, won't work on their outdated computers, or outdated phones. Flash is categorically dead! Don't even both with SWF exporters and viewers!

Acrobat is the only reliable viewers of PDF.

If they are having so much trouble understanding how the finished version will look I send an actual sample or a pure White Sample (for the likes of FSDUs or things like that). You'll spend so much time creating animated proofs and the client will change a phone number on it and want to see the whole damn thing again and you'll be left doing more animations for simple text changes than actually getting on with the job.
 
As a potential client wanting work printed all I care about is literally getting the stuff printed correctly and how I (or the client) want it. I couldn't care less about how it's presented to me as long as I can understand what's being shown in the proof etc. In fact I really don't enjoy those flash/javascript based pdf viewers, a few 'intelligent' web magazines have used this and they're literally a pita to use.
 
Thanks very much to the two respondents thus far who have advised me that they are personally not fans of the thing that I am enquiring towards. Duly noted.

My original questions and enquiries still stand. If anyone who has any experience of what I am asking about and has any resources or information that I could read up on then please point me in the direction. It would be greatly appreciated. My managers have asked me to investigate this and I would like to form my own opinion of its worth rather than present them someone else’s views, and I’m currently struggling to find the information I require.

Any info would be fab.
 
Thanks very much to the two respondents thus far who have advised me that they are personally not fans of the thing that I am enquiring towards. Duly noted.

My original questions and enquiries still stand. If anyone who has any experience of what I am asking about and has any resources or information that I could read up on then please point me in the direction. It would be greatly appreciated. My managers have asked me to investigate this and I would like to form my own opinion of its worth rather than present them someone else’s views, and I’m currently struggling to find the information I require.

Any info would be fab.

It's not a personal opinion - I've been down this route many times - it's a complete waste of time and resources - and I'm not talking about a 1 time trial or anything - I've been asked this for the last 20 years, ok maybe definitely in the last 10 years - but it always come back to being a complete waste of time and resources and point of frustration for end users.

In5 can do what you want https://ajarproductions.com/pages/products/in5/?ref=footer and it's in HTML5.
 
This may have some limited milage if you are selling print to the general public, ie the vistaprint approach (don’t get me started), but if you are selling to designers, at best it will just irritate them. At worst you will lose them. Personally, I would positively choose not to use a printer doing this kind of thing. I would rather my printer spent their time making sure their print skills are spot on, rather than wasting time making eye candy. Designers can usually visualise how they want something to look.
 
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