Re: [PDF-Basics] Postscript generation in Mac OS X

[Ron Gravius]

PDF-Basics is a service provided by PDFzone.com | http://www.pdfzone.com/
__________________________________________________________________
My two cents on the Quark export issue.  I was also appalled at the  
size of a PDF created by exporting from Quark ( in my case 6.1).  Then  
I tried opening the PDF in Acrobat Pro and saved.  The file quickly  
reduced down to a more digestible size.   This while keeping it's X/1a  
certification.

Then again, if you have Acrobat why would you export from Quark in the  
first place?

Ron



On Mar 1, 2004, at 12:31 PM, Rich Sprague wrote:

PDF-Basics is a service provided by PDFzone.com |  
http://www.pdfzone.com/
__________________________________________________________________

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).
Version: 6.0.593 / Virus Database: 376 - Release Date: 2/20/2004
To change your subscription:
http://www.pdfzone.com/discussions/lists-pdfbasics.html
To change your subscription:
http://www.pdfzone.com/discussions/lists-pdfbasics.html


To change your subscription:
http://www.pdfzone.com/discussions/lists-pdfbasics.html