Hi, Long story.
In 1996, I was working for Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), India premier economic think-tank. They produced (among other things) a Monthly Review. This was a 150 page book, dense with tables and analysis. It was in black/white, and printed by offset. One constraint was that it was released on the 4th of the month, and data was often not available till the 1st or 2nd (and then often being revised as we went to print). Typesetting was with Latex 2.09 for the text, via SQL | tex scripts for tables, abd via SQL | perl to produce .eps for graphs. Boss wanted to move to color, especially for graphs. I was given this job (mostly because I spent too much time giving advice to more productive people). The method devised was: 1. Switch to Latex 2e 2. Move the table generation off Tex to Latex as well 3. Embed color in the .eps 4. Lay out the entire book first, and then have 100 \includeonly commands for each page/section 5. As I get each page, generate that only 6. Use the colorsep package to force seperation of CYMK pages (thank you, Sebastian Rahtz, for help and enhancements for our needs). We did not use Y at all, so each page might have only K, or K, C, M. 7. Generate camera-ready copy 8. Print each color onto a transparency in-house 9. Rush these every half-an-hour to the printer as signatures were assembled, so that those that were ready could be printed in advance. Two points: 1. The printer (in 1997), was willing to take camera-ready copy, with no comments on what had been used to produce it. His point being: camera-ready means camera-ready, I will not touch the material. 2. To save on very expensive rasterisation and film, we used a laser printer printing onto transparencies, to expose the PS plates. *Every* step of the process was FLOSS (apart from the back-end Sybase). No Quark Express, no Adobe Page Maker, no Windows. This was in 1997, so things should be better now, As Sasi Kumar points out, you only need to discuss formats if you expect the printer to correct issues. If you can handle everything yourself properly, you will give him a bit-map, he will reproduce that. -- Sanjeev Gupta +65 98551208 http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghane On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 10:11 PM, V. Sasi Kumar <[email protected]> wrote: > In my limited experience, what I find is that printers prefer files in > CorelDraw or Pagemaker because they want to meddle with it before > printing. I have given pdf files with and without graphics and got them > printed without any problem. These were often documents created using > LaTeX and I didn't have any other files I could give them to edit. One > was the annual report of my institute which was a rather big document > that contained colour and black-and-white images and it came out without > any problem. I just had to ensure that everything was okay and the > printer didn't have anything to do before they printed it. I guess, from > Scribus also you could export as pdf and give that to the press, though > I am not sure how you could give image files, perhaps, that too you > could try giving in pdf format. > > Best, > Sasi > > > On Wed, 2012-06-20 at 18:41 +0530, satyaakam goswami wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 6:26 PM, Pravin Dhayfule <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > Hi, > > > > Does any one know any FOSS compatible Printing Press that > > accepts graphic files made out of FOSS Apps such as Scribus, > > GIMP, InkScape, etc. > > > > The major hurdle in converting DTP studios to FOSS is the > > incompatibility of Printing Press with FOSS Applications. As > > per the designers whom I met and explained the importance and > > benefits of FOSS, claim that the Printing Press only accept > > files designed using Adobe and Corel products. When asked > > about providing them the free software, along with the files, > > the reply was that they wont accept. > > > > > > What are those files and there extensions , afaik Printing press are > > in the business of printing they will print no matter what you give > > them to printing of course they get paid by doing so . So the argument > > they do not accept is something which we need to investigate more , > > like asking them the question like what is the format they accept > > etc.. > > > > > > > > Here I see two options: > > 1. Find the Printing Press that accepts files based on FOSS > > Apps > > 2. If not make the Printing Press adapt to FOSS. > > > > > > none of them is practical ... > > > > > > -Satya > > fossevents.in > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > network mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in > > -- > V. Sasi Kumar > Free Software Foundation of India > http://swatantryam.blogspot.com > > _______________________________________________ > network mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in >
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