Skills
Prepress Technician Skills & Tools
The technical skills, people skills and tools employers look for in prepress technicians, and how to build and show them.
What skills do prepress technicians need?
Prepress Technicians need technical skills such as preflight, adobe creative cloud, and color management, plus people skills like attention to detail and communication. They also use tools such as Adobe Acrobat and InDesign.
Technical (hard) skills
- Preflight
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Color management
- Imposition
- Platemaking
- PDF workflows
People (soft) skills
- Attention to detail
- Communication
- Patience
- Problem-solving
Tools, equipment and technology
- Adobe Acrobat
- InDesign
- Illustrator
- Prepress workflow software
- Platesetters
- Proofing printers
Skills in action: common tasks
These step-by-step guides show how prepress technicians put their skills to work:
- How to preflight a customer PDF
- How to impose a saddle-stitched booklet
- How to explain bleed to a customer
How to show these skills on a resume
- Lead your skills section with the technical skills from the job posting, for example, “Preflight” and “Adobe Creative Cloud.”
- Prove soft skills with results: instead of listing “attention to detail,” describe a situation where you used it.
- List credentials such as Adobe Certified Professional near the top, with the issuing organization and date.
- Use the employer’s vocabulary. Our prepress technician glossary covers the terms hiring managers expect.
How to build these skills
Formal training, supervised practice and certification are the most direct routes. Our Prepress Technician training introduces each of these skills with plain-language lessons, procedures and a final knowledge check: a strong foundation before hands-on training or your first day.