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Well, I hate to say this, but I will: 1) Generally speaking, I would trust a PDF made from any Adobe application (by a competent operator/technician). 2) If I'm going to press, my first choice would be to use the print Adobe PDF printer. If I don't have that option, I would PostScript and Distill. 3) For web or screen viewing, I would feel safe with the export capability in InDesign. PDF files made with the export feature in InDesign and Photoshop will be larger than their print to Adobe PDF counterparts. 4) From Word, I use the PDF Maker. 5) I would never, ever, export a PDF from either Quark or Corel Draw. Yesterday I made a post wherein the exported Quark PDF for a single 4-color page was 35 MB, or over 10 times the size of a PDF made by PSing and Distilling. Corel has all sorts of cute features built in its program (including the lens tool) which make huge PDFs that rips often choke to death on. If a client of mine is using Acrobat 4, I "strongly" encourage that they upgrade. I like the one-step process of printing a PDF. You tell the people to open Distiller, select the Press Quality job options and close it. Then they print away. People have a tendancy to easily get confused and make the process more complicated than it is. The more choices they have, the more likely it is that they will make the wrong choice. The export feature in Quark, Corel and others saves one from buying Acrobat, but the cost can be far greater when the job fails, files are too large to submit electronically, a delivery is missed, or they pay for tech time to get the file to rip. Rich -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jason Paul Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 9:32 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PDF-Basics] Postscript generation in Mac OS X PDF-Basics is a service provided by PDFzone.com | http://www.pdfzone.com/ __________________________________________________________________ Richs' experiments remind me of the point I tried to make in an earlier post. Exported pdf's don't always fail, but they do seem to be unpredictable. In a production environment, unpredictable doesn't cut it. In order to maintain some semblance of repeatability we encourage our clients to produce their files in the "tried and true" method of .ps/distilling. This doesn't mean that we will never accept files created by exporting, we have produced several magazines using this method and have had no problems.(fingers crossed of course:). Until we can solve the problem, or at least pinpoint it, it's going to be status quo. On another note... is there another pdf list that deals with prepress/print production, any recommendations? cheers Jason ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rich Sprague" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 7:30 PM Subject: RE: [PDF-Basics] Postscript generation in Mac OS X > > PDF-Basics is a service provided by PDFzone.com | http://www.pdfzone.com/ > __________________________________________________________________ > > Thank you, Leonard, for your extensive explanation. I honestly am not sure > if it answers the question about the difference between the three different > PDFs I tested today, or muddies the water. > > From a printer's point of view, all three PDFs were identical. As you will > recall, one of the PDFs I made was from the print to Adobe PDF feature, and > another I PS'd and distilled. Both of those PDFs indicated that they were > made from Distiller 6.0.1. I don't know how anyone would know which way I > made them, and I ask the question again, as a printer how am I going to know > that one of the PDFs is tainted? > > This is just an incredible can of worms. People make PDFs by PSing and > distilling, by printing to the Adobe printer, by exporting using the PDF > Library, with Ghostscript. and who knows how many other programs? The > biggest issues for printers are enough in themselves to cope with: are the > fonts embedded, is the resolution correct, is the file CMYK, and will it > RIP? > > If, in fact, the only way to correctly make a PDF is to print to Adobe PDF, > then why would Adobe offer an export or save to PDF function in its > programs? Why would third party vendors offer alternative software for > making PDFs? > > And if we're all supposed to put on the brakes and start using one method > only, what happens when something better comes along? I don't think people > are prepared to change their workflows (or habits) that rapidly. > > I respect your knowledge and expertise as an engineer, but 95% of the people > in the trenches (designers and producers) won't have a clue what this all > means. When a magazine calls and says send a PDF, they don't ask how it was > made...they're mainly interested in the fact that one uses the Press Quality > job options. > > I go back to something I said many threads ago. It's best to discuss > production issues between the vendor and the customer, and develop a > workflow that works for both parties. > > Rich > > ------------------- > > P.S. Following additional research, I learned today why my colleague was > making bloated PDFs file Quark files. He was printing to the Distiller PPD, > but using a Laserwriter print driver. By installing the Adobe Virtual > Printer (Mac OS 9.2.2), he knocked down the size of a single-page full-color > PDF from 16 MB to 3.2 MB. The same page exported from Quark was a whopping > 35 MB. > > ------------------- > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Leonard Rosenthol > Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 4:24 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PDF-Basics] Postscript generation in Mac OS X > > > PDF-Basics is a service provided by PDFzone.com | http://www.pdfzone.com/ > __________________________________________________________________ > > At 07:44 AM 2/29/2004, Rich Sprague wrote: > >Could you please explain your rationale, here, so people can understand > >why you are making this claim? > > Postscript generation in Mac OS X takes a strange a indirect path, > unlike generation of PS on Mac OS 9...AND things changed between 10.2 and > 10.3... > > On 9, applications either printed directly in Postscript (in which > case it was written directly to disk) OR they printed in QuickDraw which was > converted in the PS driver to PS and then written/printed. > > In OS X, applications can print either in "PS in PICT" (one PICT > file, PER PAGE, with embedded Postscript), or Quartz. In the latter case, > Quartz is converted to PDF and then PDF is sent to the printing system - and > to get Postscript, the PDF is converted to Postscript and then fed to the PS > "printer driver". In the former case, the PICTs are "unwrapped" and the PS > data is sent to the driver along with job-level instructions and then > printed/saved. Since the apps can't write entire jobs of PS, only > page-level PS, it's not possible to send a "pure PS stream" to the printer > as it was in 9. > > With 10.3, things got even more interesting when Apple made two > more changes to the print system. First, they added the ability to send a > PDF directly from an application to the printer - this is what Acrobat > 6.0.1 does, thus speeding up printing to non-PS printers. Second, the > integrated Adobe Normalizer providing a PS->PDF conversion in the printing > system to allow printing of PS from apps like Quark and Illustrator to > non-PS printers. > > Bottom line - there is NO WAY for an application in OS X to produce > the EXACT STREAM of PS that will be sent to the printer as there was in OS 9 > - and as such, it should be considered "tainted". Even more important is > that the PDF->PS process used for non-PS generating application (ie. > anything that isn't prepress, or that is written in Cocoa) will create PS > that if then fed back into Distiller will generate poor quality PDFs - most > esp. with non-searchable fonts :(. > > So, if you are using Mac OS X, and your goal is high quality PDF - > go DIRECTLY from your authoring application! > > > Leonard > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - > Leonard Rosenthol <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Chief Technical Officer <http://www.pdfsages.com> > PDF Sages, Inc. 215-629-3700 (voice) > 215-629-0789 (fax) > > > To change your subscription: > http://www.pdfzone.com/discussions/lists-pdfbasics.html > > > To change your subscription: > http://www.pdfzone.com/discussions/lists-pdfbasics.html > > --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). 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