How Prepta works
Prepta runs five steps on every file — upload, understand, preflight, fix, validate. What each step is allowed to do comes from the production profile you assign to the job, so the same file can be treated differently for a banner and for a sticker.
Below is one real-shaped job from start to finish: a customer PDF for a large-format campaign, exported from a design tool, with the problems that combination usually brings.
The file arrives as it is
A customer sends artwork for a large-format campaign. Nobody has looked at it yet. Prepta records it unchanged as version 1 and assigns the production profile for the job.
The original is never modified. Everything that follows creates new versions alongside it.
Work out what it is before judging it
File structure and image characteristics indicate a design-tool export rather than a professionally prepared PDF. That sets expectations: RGB colour, no bleed, live transparency, and imagery placed by the customer.
Reported as a likelihood with confidence, never as certainty.
Check against the profile that applies
The profile requires CMYK, 10 mm of bleed and a minimum of 100 effective DPI at final size. Four issues are found. Two are errors against the profile, two are warnings that need a view taken.
Severity comes from the profile. On a digital print profile the same DPI finding would be an error.
Apply what is safe, escalate what is not
Three repairs have exactly one correct result for this profile, so they are applied and logged. The resolution finding does not: no transformation can add detail the file never contained, so it becomes a review with a recommendation.
Prepta does not attempt upscaling or automatic vectorization. It says so in the report.
Re-check the output, then release or hold
The repaired file is preflighted again against the same profile version and passes. The job is marked ready with one open review, so production can be planned while the customer is asked for a better logo.
Every step above is in the audit trail, including which profile version approved it.
What decides the behaviour
Nothing above is a global setting. Each rule comes from the production profile assigned to the job — which is why the same customer file can be automatically flattened for a cutter and left with live transparency for a RIP.
Safe to fix
The production profile defines exactly one correct result, so Prepta applies it and logs it. Colour conversion, bleed generation, flattening.
Needs judgement
A fix exists but the trade-off is a decision: visible colour shifts, borderline resolution, contours over complex artwork. An operator confirms.
Cannot safely fix
Detail that was never in the file cannot be added. Prepta stops, states the measurement, and recommends what to request.