Quad/Graphics PDF Guideline

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Creating Print-Ready PDF’s Using

Adobe Acrobat 9, InDesign CS4,

& QuarkXPress 8

Provided by:

Quad/Graphics Technology Group

July 2010

Disclaimer

Adobe’s Acrobat suite of software applications is a very robust software package and covers a wide range of multiple markets. These guidelines are intended to explain how to create a typical Print-Ready PDF (PDF/X-1a:2001) file using our suggested settings. Please beware that these are guidelines and all the settings, especially compression and resolution, may not be appropriate for your company’s use. Always consult your printer and test before going live with a job.

QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0 ........................................................................................................1

How to Use These Guidelines ...........................................................................................................................................5

Contacting Quad/Graphics about PDF ....................................................................................................................5

Acrobat’s Built-in Functionality, What’s Supported by What Version? ...............................................................6

What to Know about PDF? .........................................................................................................................................6

Do I need to Preflight my PDF? .................................................................................................................................7

What is a PDF/X file? ..................................................................................................................................................8

All PDFs are Created Equal, Right? ..........................................................................................................................9

A Detailed Look at Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0 Settings ............................................................................................10

Important Acrobat 9.0 Distiller Presettings ...................................................................................................................19

Preference Settings for a Macintosh Environment ................................................................................................19

Preference Settings for a Windows Environment .................................................................................................19

Font Handling ............................................................................................................................................................20

Open Type Fonts ........................................................................................................................................................21

MacOS X Font Management ....................................................................................................................................21

Layout to PDF, via PostScript ..........................................................................................................................................22

Creating PostScript, for Later Distillation, from QuarkXPress 8 ........................................................................22

Using Adobe PDF 9 Virtual Printer .........................................................................................................................26

Creating PostScript, for Later Distillation, from Adobe InDesign CS4 ..............................................................27

Layout to PDF, via Direct Export ....................................................................................................................................31

Direct Exporting PDF from QuarkXPress 8 ...........................................................................................................31

Direct Exporting PDF from Adobe InDesign CS4 .................................................................................................35

Appendix A

Overprints and PDF ..................................................................................................................................................38

Configuring Acrobat’s Overprint Preview Option ........................................................................................39

Using Output Preview to Check Your Overprints .........................................................................................39

Transparency in PDF .................................................................................................................................................41

A Printer’s Perspective & General Information .............................................................................................41

Transparency Design Considerations ..............................................................................................................42

Recommended Transparency Flattening Settings and Overview ...............................................................45

Using InDesign CS4’s Transparency Flattener Preview Option ..................................................................46

Using Acrobat 9’s Transparency Flattener Preview Option .........................................................................48

Appendix B

Alternative Compression Tab Settings....................................................................................................................50

Different Compression Schemes in Distiller ..........................................................................................................51

Appendix C

QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 8..................................................................................................53

QWik Start Reference: QuarkXPress 7.0, via PostScript .......................................................................................56

QWik Start Reference: QuarkXPress 7.0, via Direct Export .................................................................................59

QWik Start Reference: InDesign CS3, via PostScript ............................................................................................62

QWik Start Reference: InDesign CS3, via Direct Export ......................................................................................65

Apple, Macintosh, and MacOS X are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc.

Adobe, Acrobat, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and PostScript are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Quark, QuarkXPress, QuarkXTensions, and XTensions are trademarks of Quark, Inc.

Prinergy is a trademark of Creo Inc., a subsidiary of Kodak

All other trademarks are property of their respective owners

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July 2010

Page ii

QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0

Adobe Acrobat 9.0 was shipped in the June of 2008. It is typical for all software manufacturers to release maintenance patches to their software packages from time to time. Always ensure that your software is the latest version.

Updates can be obtained three different ways:

1. Launch Acrobat 9.0 application (not Distiller). Select: “Check for updates now…” It is located under the

“Help” menu.

2. Check the Adobe web site

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/

frequently to verify you have the latest version.

3. Call Adobe Customer Service at (800) 833-6687.

Caution About New Features In Acrobat 9.0

In today’s world, all software development companies must compete for market share in non-print medias. There are features in Acrobat 9 that cannot be processed correctly, or at all, for print. Quad/Graphics’ settings are designed to allow you to use the latest version of Acrobat to create safe, predictable and reliable PDFs for print reproduction.

Some of the newer PDF features have been intentionally disabled from our settings include live-transparency,

JPEG2000 and object level compression. By creating PDF 1.3 (Acrobat 4) - compatible files, we eliminate the possibility of these features causing problems at press. Refer to the Acrobat 9.0 section for more information on these features.

Software Requirements

1. Be sure to use the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0.

2. Preflight (absolute necessity) - Now that Acrobat 9.0 Professional ships with its own built-in preflight module, there is no excuse. If you prefer another package, there are several other good PDF preflight software packages available. Preflight will verify that your final PDF is print-ready. These packages identify problems and enable you to correct them before the final PDF files are sent to the printing plant.

The PDF/X tab does validate (preflight) some of the data. This validation does not include items such as image resolution.

You will need a preflight application to do more in-depth checks.

Shows Software Version status

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May 2010

Page 1

QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0

(cont.)

About These Settings

The suggested settings we described in our previous How2PDF Guidelines have had about a 99% customer satisfaction rate, but the goals of these settings did not always align to fit a customer’s particular needs. Today, many customers and printers have their own preferred Distiller settings and unfortunately these are often dissimilar. This has created much confusion and added complexity to PDF creation. While some printers required that you use their settings Quad/Graphics has published these settings as suggestions. These settings are not mandatory, but will provide you with a high quality PDF file that has a proven track record for printing.

Adobe’s Acrobat Distiller settings has a lot of flexibility and the following Guideline settings do NOT have to be followed EXACTLY to submit files to a Quad/Graphics facility. You may not agree with each of the settings. If you decide to use different settings, please discuss them with the respective plant where you print and submit test pages before going live.

General Tab Settings

Image Tab Settings*

* These guideline settings will apply JPEG compression (lossy) to images and

ZIP compression (lossless) to screen captures. These guideline settings will also down-sample all color and grayscale images above 300 dpi to 300 dpi.

Quad/Graphics is suggesting these settings because we found that this compression setting provides smaller file sizes without compromising quality.

Refer to Appendix B for alternative (ZIP, no compression, downsampling) image tab settings.

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July 2010

Page 2

QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0

(cont.)

Fonts Tab Settings

Color Tab Settings

Quad/Graphics, Inc. Technology Group

Advanced Tab Settings

May 2010

Page 3

QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0

(cont.)

Standards Tab Settings

The Output Intent Profile Name assigned needs to reflect the expected output

(proofing) condition.

Saving Your Job Options File

Save your newly created “Job Options” file back to your local hard drive. On a Macintosh, the path will be

“Macintosh HD:Library:Application Support:Adobe:Adobe PDF:Settings” and for the PC (Microsoft Operating

System) the path will be “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Adobe PDF 9.0\Settings.”

If you would prefer to download the above settings instead of creating your own, the Quad/Graphics 9 (PDFX-1a_2001) job option settings file can be downloaded from the following FTP site:

Host: ftp://specs.qwinc.com

Password: pdf

Directory: Job_Option_Settings

File name: Acro9_PDFX-1a.sea or Acro9_PDFX-1a.zip

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July 2010

Page 4

How to Use These Guidelines

The previous version of these guidelines were distributed all over the world mostly by word of mouth. They can be found on many customer’s web sites as a reference for themselves and their clients on how to create quality print-ready PDF files. We received positive feedback from our colleagues, customers, suppliers, vendors, and even competitors. We want to Thank Everyone for the positive feedback and suggestions you have made to us and we hope this release is as successful and useful to each of you as the last one.

The How2PDF Guidelines are intended to provide direction for all suppliers of PDF files to Quad/Graphics facilities.

The suggestions in this document will aid in the creation of PDF and/or PDF/X-1a:2001 files that will limit errors and process quickly/efficiently through all our print manufacturing facilities.

At the time of this writing, Adobe’s current release of Adobe Acrobat Professional is Version 9.x. This guide summa-

rizes new features of Version 9 and highlights the main differences from previous versions beginning on page 6. A

QWik Start Reference for Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0 begins on page 1. For those who want a more thorough explanation

of the Acrobat Distiller settings, refer to A Detailed Look at Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0 that begins on page 10.

Some of our suppliers continue to use earlier versions of Acrobat (4, 5, 6, 7, and 8) for various reasons, most notably the fact that version 7.0 and later requires Apple’s new MacOS X operating system for the Macintosh environment.

A QWik Start Reference for Adobe Acrobat Distiller 8 Users begins on page 53. Our suggested settings for Acrobat 3, 4, 5,

6, 7, 8, and 9 can still be downloaded from our FTP site. Refer to page 4 for login information.

One of the previous version of these guidelines, dated October 2001, stated that quality PDF files start with the creation of quality PostScript files. While we feel this is still one of the best, safest, and preferred methods of creating a PDF file, today many applications can also directly export PDF files. InDesign uses Adobe PDF Libraries, while

QuarkXPress 6 or later uses Global Graphic’s PDF Libraries. If you plan to use the direct export approach, be sure to save the PDF files with a PDF 1.3 (Acrobat 4) compatibility to ensure that the PDF file contains only PDF operators that can be consumed safely by a PostScript 3 RIP and PDF workflow.

The section named Layout to PDF, via PostScript describes the best practices for the creation of PostScript files from

both QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign for distillation. This section begins on page 22. The section named Layout to

PDF, via Direct Export describes the best practices for PDF export from both QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign. This

section begins on page 31.

Data Compression and Subsampling Schemes are defined in Appendix B starting on page 50. There are several compression options available for use with Distiller. Understanding each option will allow users to make the best compression decisions for their job.

NOTE: These guidelines suggest using JPEG Maximum Quality to compress all embedded CT images.

This lossy compression scheme does not work well with images containing certain objects, such as furniture, fine text in stereos, fine china and jewelry. This lossy compression scheme can introduce jagged edges where extreme light to dark transitions occur. If jagged edges appear, they will be visible on the contract proof, created from the PDF, and will not be magnified during the printing process. The use of ZIP (lossless) for these types of images is then recommended. The resulting PDF files will be larger in size due to the lossless compression.

Contacting Quad/Graphics about PDF

All Quad/Graphics manufacturing facilities have their own internal technical staffs that directly support that particular facility. These facilities are also supported by the Quad/Graphics Technology Group (a corporate staff of technical specialists). Among our various duties is writing technical documentation such as these guidelines. The

Quad/Graphics Inc. Technology Group values your opinions and encourages your feedback and suggestions. In an effort to make it easy for you to contact us, we have created a special email address for PDF and other technical related concerns you may have. The email address is [email protected]. All received emails will be routed to a technical specialist that has adept knowledge pertaining to your question.

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May 2010

Page 5

The latest revision of these guidelines can be downloaded from the FTP site at: ftp://specs.qwinc.com. Log-in as user name: pdf and use the password: pdf. A complete set of our international file format specifications and the Distiller

Job Option files are also available for downloading from this site.

Acrobat’s Built-in Functionality, What’s Supported by What Version?

As Acrobat continues to mature, new features are being added. Below is a quick reference of the functionalities various versions of Acrobat support.

With each new release of Acrobat, a newer version of their PDF Specifications was drafted to support the added feature set(s). However, each new version of Distiller is capable of generating PDF files using an earlier version compatibility. When PDF files are created using a previous version’s compatibility, new features may no longer be supported and that feature is either lost (i.e. layers) or converted in a way that the previous version supports

(i.e. transparency is flattened to opaque objects). In the case of overprint, the overprint operator remains intact, but the overprint is displayed as an opaque object when viewed in a PDF viewer that does not support overprint.

Overprints display opaque in Acrobat 3, Acrobat 4, and Acrobat Reader versions 3, 4, 5, and 6.

You can be sure that your printer’s RIP technology cannot handle all the features in the later versions of Adobe’s

PDF specification. Generating PDF files using PDF 1.3 compatibility is always safe; it was the last version of the

PDF specification that could be fully supported by any PostScript 3 RIP. Once you move to PDF 1.4, special tools are required to convert these features into a language that a PostScript 3 RIP can understand.

Acrobat Version PDF Specification Support

Acrobat 6 Professional PDF 1.5, PDF 1.4, PDF 1.3, & PDF 1.2

Acrobat 6 Standard PDF 1.5, PDF 1.4, PDF 1.3, & PDF 1.2

Acrobat 6 Reader PDF 1.5, PDF 1.4, PDF 1.3, & PDF 1.2

Acrobat 7 Professional PDF 1.6, PDF 1.5, PDF 1.4, PDF 1.3, & PDF 1.2

Acrobat 7 Standard PDF 1.6, PDF 1.5, PDF 1.4, PDF 1.3, & PDF 1.2

Acrobat 7 Reader PDF 1.6, PDF 1.5, PDF 1.4, PDF 1.3, & PDF 1.2

Acrobat 8 Professional PDF 1.7, PDF 1.6, PDF 1.5, PDF 1.4, PDF 1.3, & PDF 1.2

Acrobat 8 Standard

Acrobat 8 Reader

PDF 1.7, PDF 1.6, PDF 1.5, PDF 1.4, PDF 1.3, & PDF 1.2

Acrobat 9 Professional PDF 1.7, PDF 1.6, PDF 1.5, PDF 1.4, PDF 1.3, & PDF 1.2

Acrobat 9 Standard

Acrobat 9 Reader

PDF 1.7, PDF 1.6, PDF 1.5, PDF 1.4, PDF 1.3, & PDF 1.2

Generates

PDF/X Files

Overprint

Preview

Previews

Live-Transparency

Transparency

Flattener

Adobe’s Built-in

Preflight

PDF

Layers

3 3 7 3 3

- PDF/X files can be created using both Adobe Acrobat’s built-in preflight program and/or Adobe Acrobat Distiller 6, 7, 8, and 9.

- PDF/X files can only be created with Adobe Acrobat Distiller 6, 7, 8, and 9.

Fields containing a dash (—) represent versions of Acrobat that were released before Adobe had added that feature into their Acrobat Suite. Therefore, these versions do not support that particular feature. Fields with the 3 represent that the feature is supported by that version. Fields with the 7 represent that the feature is not supported by that version. It may still open the PDF file, but it will not display any of the new features correctly.

What to Know about PDF?

The Adobe Acrobat PDF file format can be a very safe, predictable, reliable and efficient file format for submitting jobs to your printer, when done correctly. If the files are not created correctly, the results can be unpredictable. By following the simple steps below your job will print properly.

1. Understand how overprint and transparency impacts the output of your page. Tools that allow you to deter-

mine when you have used them, and how these features can effect the output are found on pages 38 and 41.

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2. “Overprint Preview” is not a default setting, therefore make sure you have it turned on in your Acrobat application. Overprint Preview was added to Acrobat with the introduction of Acrobat 5. Acrobat Reader 7 was the first Reader application that supported this feature, previous versions did not. Test and verify that your proofer does support and is properly set-up to render overprints correctly. Overprint errors are still the most common problem printers encounter. Your printer has the ability to either honor or overwrite your

PDF overprints. While most prefer to honor, but they need to be informed before hand. Overprint settings are applied globally to all pages of the job.

3. Preflight the PDF file. This is a critical step in the process and it is a proven fact that jobs that have been preflighted work; non-preflighted jobs are the ones that commonly suffer from multiple errors and production delays. Only preflighting the page in the layout application is not enough. Your PDF Export and/or

Distiller settings can alter the image contents as the PDF files are being created. Understand the preflight controls and what each preflight application is capable of doing. Acrobat Professional, versions 6 and later, include a built-in preflight module.

4. Understand the Distiller/Export settings you are using and how they can alter the PDF creation. We understand that you may not agree with all our settings. They are suggested guidelines, but you need to understand which ones are critical for safe, predictable, and reliable output.

5. Always proof from the file you submit to the printer. Do NOT create your proof by printing directly from the layout application, then create the PDF at a later date. This is how errors can, will and do happen!

Our suggested PDF settings add lossy compression to minimize file size, which reduces storage requirements, improves file copy/transmittal, and overall print times. The PDF format allows you to create a single file (package) that includes all text, fonts, tints, and images with various compression and downsampling settings. PDF files are platform independent and can be opened, viewed, edited, or printed on a wide variety of operating systems. The architecture of Adobe Acrobat allows plug-ins, from third parties, to add additional functionality to

Acrobat. Acrobat Professional’s own preflight tool, OEM’d from Callas Software ( www.callas.de

), and Enfocus’

PitStop Professional ( www.enfocus.com

) are plug-ins that allow editing and preflighting of PDF files to Acrobat.

While surfing the web, check out www.pdfzone.com

or www.planetpdf.com

for other plug-ins and other valuable information that may be useful to you and your specific requirements.

Communicate with your printer to determine…

1. Should my printer honor or overwrite my overprint settings?

2. Were the supplied proofs created from the PDF to be submitted?

3. Is PDF/X the required format for file submittal or is preflight PDF acceptable?

4. What is the maximum version of the PDF Specification that their PDF workflow system supports?

5. How were my images color managed. Is pre-color managed CMYK images a requirement (typical for North

America) or is a device independent color space for color management the requirement (Europe)?

6. If the job requires versioning, how are the versions to be submitted?

Do I need to Preflight my PDF?

Yes. Over the past few years the number of customers that have switched to PDF has continued to grow at a rapid pace and methods of creating PDF, other than creating PostScript and distilling, have grown as well. Preflight ensures that the PDF file you created is print-ready. Just because the page passes the page layout’s preflight does not necessarily mean unexpected changes were not introduced during the actual PDF creation process. Unexpected surprises do occur and they have caused major issues at press time. Unlike TIFF/IT-P1 (CT/LW) file format, this format is very robust and is targeted for other markets. The feature richness includes color management (the cause of unexpected results to the unaware user), alternative image spaces (RGB, LAB, etc.), bookmarks, tags, sounds, movies, and even attachments all are within PDF capabilities. Preflight allows one to catch errors and surprise changes at the time of the creation, thus saving time, money, and rework later in the production cycle.

The supplier who properly preflights their PDF files rarely have problems on press. Files that are not preflighted or preflighted improperly can lead to press downtime and the print schedule can be jeopardized.

As PDF became the new standard for file submittal, Adobe realized the importance of preflight and added pre-

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Page 7

flight to their Acrobat Professional Suites. Several other software companies, such as Enfocus ( www.enfocus.com

Markzware ( www.markzware.com

), and Callas ( www.callas.de

) also offer PDF preflight software packages. A small investment in preflight software will save you time, aggravation, and probably thousands of dollars later on.

Confused about preflight and all the settings? You are not alone. For that reason, the Ghent workgroup, an international group of experts, has taken on the initiative to identify and create PDF profiles for the various advertising and commercial markets. To find out more about them, visit their web site at www.gwg.org

What is a PDF/X file?

PDF/X stands for Portable Document Format/eXchange. It is an accredited ISO standard for standardizing how PDF files must be created for print. It is a subset of one of Adobe’s PDF specifications. Each time Adobe releases a new version of Acrobat, a new PDF specification is also released (needed for the new features and enhancements). There is always a delay between the current release of and the latest version of Acrobat. It takes time to draft, discuss, and have standards approved. Quad/Graphics participates in the CGATS subcommittee that is responsible for creating and updating the PDF/X specification.

Think of PDF/X as a preflighted PDF file for print. The PDF/X specification is very specific about how a PDF file’s make-up must be to pass the PDF/X verification process. It mandates such things as all fonts must be embedded, all images must be embedded, what color spaces can be supported by that version of the PDF/X specification, output intents (specifies color model file was created for), and even includes support for trim/bleed boxes. It is also more generic in other areas because of the fact that various print markets have different requirements. For example, the image resolution for commercial and newspaper are on very different ends of the spectrum, so PDF does not specify a particular image resolution. This is where the Ghent Workgroup and others come into play. They have further defined the PDF/X standard to fit specific markets. The Ghent Workgroup refers to their rendition as PDF/X+ because they tailored the standard for certain market segments.

Typically you will encounter two different types of PDF/X files. They are PDF/X-1a and PDF/X-3. PDF/X-1a does not allow for color management (only CMYK images) and is the common format for North America. PDF/X-3 is a color managed workflow that can contain CMYK images as well as RGB and LAB. This format is widely used in Europe. To make it more confusing there are multiple versions of a PDF/X file. There is a PDF/X-1a:2001 and a PDF/X-1a:2003. The year signifies the year the standard was approved, but the difference is the version of the

PDF specification they are a subset of. The 2001 version is a subset of the 1.3 specification (Acrobat 4) and the 2003 version is a subset of the 1.4 specification (Acrobat 5). Refer to the chart as a reference for both PDF/X-1 and X-3.

PDF/X Version Reference ISO Version Reference Targeted Audience

PDF/X-1a:1999

PDF/X-1a:2001

PDF/X-1a:2003

PDF/X-3:2002

PDF/X-3:2003

PDF/X-4:2008

ISO 15930-1:1999

ISO 15930-1:2001

ISO 15930-1:2003

ISO 15930-3:2002

ISO 15930-3:2003

ISO 15930-7:2008

Complete exchange using CMYK and spot colors

Complete exchange using device-independent colors

Permits Color

Management of Data Subset of this PDF Specification

PDF 1.3 Specification (Acrobat 4)

PDF 1.4 Specification (Acrobat 5)

Yes

PDF 1.3 Specification (Acrobat 4)

PDF 1.4 Specification (Acrobat 5)

There have been numerous articles written about PDF/X file preparation and the Internet is a great resource of information on the subject. We encourage you to search the web for more information and the Ghent workgroup website ( www.gwg.org

) for more detailed information.

Quad/Graphics endorses the PDF standard 100% and we encourage its use.

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July 2010

Page 8

All PDFs are Created Equal, Right?

Have you ever had a PDF file that took a long time to open, to display, or to print? Imagine multiplying that delay by 8, 16, 32, or 64 pages on a signature and you understand the headaches they can cause a printing plant when trying to output a job. A process that should take minutes can easily turn into hours, if there can be any output at all.

Typically these types of pages are not caused by incorrect Distiller or export settings, but the source of the original data. When these problems occur, they are usually traced back to TIFF/IT or another legacy based rasterized CT/

LW (continuous tone/linework) format that was used in the process. Some workflow solutions use CT/LW as their internal format and then convert it to PDF. This LW format conversion can be problematic. Depending on the method used to convert the LW, each vendor uses their own method and they can have dramatic results.

A general rule of thumb, if it takes you a long time to view and print, then it will be magnified when output at higher resolutions for print.

Another cause is TIFF/IT advertisements and the methods used to make them placeable objects in your page layout program. To make them placeable, something has to convert the LW to objects understandable to PDF.

To the right is a simple fictitious page. It is a simple page made up of a single image, a masthead and logo illustration and keystroked text. The PDF created from the page-layout and Distiller is small. It opens and prints in seconds.

Using this page as an example, let us demonstrate how not all PDF files are created equal. We will use the Enfocus PitStop feature called “Wireframe” to look at the output of three commonly used ways to create PDF from our test page. When viewing in “Wireframe,” images and image masks are displayed as boxes with an “X” placed through them. Keystroked text or symbolic objects are shown in solid black objects. Any graphic illustrations are shown as outlines (masthead text had been converted to outlines).

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FINALLY!

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Image A creator, Acrobat Distiller, was created thru normal methods (TIFF image, Illustrator

EPS images and keystroked text) PostScripted and Distilled using our How2PDF Guideline settings. Images B and C were created using two different commonly used CT/LW based

RIP’s that output PDF files. Notice the differences in number of images and number of vector objects in each of the examples below.

Graham Scores 6

Including Game Winner

Neither Power Failure or

Snow Can Stop Them!

Complete Coverage Inside

Three outputs, three extremely different results. Page output times range from just seconds to over an hour.

Image A, Acrobat Distiller

Number of Images: 1

Number of Vector Objects: 2083

Image B, Unnamed Vendor

Number of Images: 1

Number of Vector Objects: 302,964

Image C, Unnamed Vendor

Number of Images: 1730

Number of Vector Objects: 0

Hopefully this helps prove that all PDF files are NOT created equal and it helps to recognize what may be happening when a page opens or prints slowly.

Quad/Graphics, Inc. Technology Group

May 2010

Page 9

A Detailed Look at Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0 Settings

Launch Acrobat Distiller 9.0 on your computer. Mac or PC dialog windows will appear with the same options.

Select “PDFX/1a:2001” in the Default Settings dialog box. This is extremely important because it ensures a consistent starting point for establishing the exact distiller configuration suggested in this guide.

Go to “Edit Adobe PDF Settings…” under the “Settings” menu.

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General Tab

Description: User defined descriptive text about how the selected Distiller “Job Options” is intended to be used. This is a free form text field that is optional, but encouraged. When a job option is selected the information entered here is displayed to the operator.

Compatibility: leave setting as – Acrobat 4 (PDF 1.3). This setting specifies which Adobe PDF specification will be used during the PDF generation. With every release of Acrobat, Adobe adds new features to their specification that are months, sometimes years ahead of RIP (Raster Image Process) technology. By leaving Acrobat 4 (PDF 1.3), we eliminate the possibility of these non-reproducible feature enhancements being applied to the file. A PDF file must be created with Acrobat 4 (PDF 1.3) if the file is intended to be PDF/X-1a:2001 compliant. PDF/X-1a:2001 is an accredited

standard. For more information about the other PDF/X choices, refer to page 8 of this document.

What the other PDF compatibilities do and some of their features:

Acrobat 4 (PDF 1.3) – added deviceN color space (duotone and spot color support) and composite (CID) font support. Only fonts that allowed font embedding could be embedded.

Acrobat 5 (PDF 1.4) – added overprint preview, smooth shading, and transparency support.

Acrobat 6 (PDF 1.5) – added JPEG 2000, object-level compression and layer support, and the capability to create PDF/X-1a:2001 and PDF/X-3:2002 files.

Acrobat 7 (PDF 1.6) – added PDF/X-1a:2003 and PDF/X-3:2003 files.

Acrobat 8 & 9 (PDF 1.7) – no relevant additions added.

Note: DuoTones and Colorized TIFFs require PostScript 3 DeviceN color space. If you are using either type of image in your document, the compatibility must be set to Acrobat 4 (PDF 1.3) or above. When using QuarkXPress 5.0 or earlier you will need to install a colorized TIFF XTension to maintain the assigned colors. These XTensions are available for free from both Creo and Agfa web sites.

Object Level Compression: leave this setting – OFF. Introduced with the PDF 1.5 (Acrobat 6) specification, it controls compression for small objects (which cannot be compressed) by converting them into data streams that can be easily compressed. This new compression method IS NOT backward compatible.

If you choose Tags, object level streams may be used to compress tag information. Although the file will be able to be opened and used in Acrobat 5.0 or earlier readers and RIPs, the compressed tagged information is unusable.

As long as you have PDF 1.4 (Acrobat 5) or earlier chosen for your file compatibility, the option All is not available.

While All provides the maximum amount of compression, it requires Acrobat 6 or later to open, read, and process the file. If selected, your printer WILL NOT be able to process any PDF files that have this compression method applied.

Auto-Rotate Pages: leave this setting – OFF. Turning this setting on may cause your pages to be rotated differently than your layout application print settings specified. When ‘On‘ the orientation (rotation) is determined by the predominate text orientation.

Binding: leave this setting – LEFT. Setting is used to determine how the page is to be bound. Changing the setting to

Right may cause imposition problems later.

Resolution: leave this setting at – 2400. The wrong setting here could cause problems later in the process. The resolution setting is used when Distiller is calculating blends and processing vector art.

All Pages and Pages From: To: : leave this setting – All Pages. Setting specifies what pages of an incoming

PostScript file will be distilled. Changing this setting will result in pages being omitted during distillation.

Default Page Size: width 612 points, height 792 points. Leave these settings as your default. They only apply to incoming PostScript files that do not contain a page bounding box. (Usually EPS files). Pages printed from layout applications will typically have bounding boxes.

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Images Tab

The settings for images tab control the compression and resampling (downward only) of color, grayscale, and monochrome (B&W) images. The “proper” settings for this tab are an ongoing debate and, like color, are considered very subjective. Due to the latitude and flexibility of these settings, no one set of settings fits all.

The editors of this guide acknowledge that JPEG compression is a lossy compression scheme and that downsampling also affects the quality of an image. These settings will not fit every need and this is why Quad/Graphics has provided additional options for the Images tab. These Alternative Compression Tab Settings can be found in Appendix B, on

page 49 of this document.

Since the settings for the Color Images and Grayscale Images are identical, they have been grouped together for this section of the images tab.

Leave Sampling to – Bicubic Downsampling. Leave the setting for images above to – 300 pixels per inch. Change for images above to – 300 pixels per inch. These settings will force any images that are 301 dpi or above down to 300 dpi during the distillation process. Bicubic Downsampling is the best resampling algorithm available. NEVER use

Average Downsampling or Subsampling to for print quality work. These settings will DESTROY your images.

Note: Acrobat Distiller will NOT resample your images to a higher resolution (upsample). Images below the

300 dpi threshold will maintain their original input resolutions (after scaling in layout applications).

Files will take a little longer to distill when bicubic sampling is enabled. However, the resulting PDF files will be more compact and will be processed at the proper resolution for printing. Resampling continuous tone images

(color and grayscale) is common and normal for any CT/LW workflow (RIP) and is no cause for alarm. The DPI setting should be at least twice the value of the line screen of your print job. When you do not know what line screen will be used for your print job, 300 dpi should be sufficient.

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Adobe has always allowed the ability to set the downsampling value for Distiller. Starting with Acrobat 4.0, the downsample threshold default was set to 1.5 times the specified value. For example, if you set the Distiller to downsample images above 300 dpi, images would have to be over 451 dpi (300 x 1.5 = 450) before they would be downsampled. Images that fell in the range of 300 dpi to 450 dpi would not be downsampled. To change the threshold in Acrobat 4.0 requires hand editing the individual “Job Options” file. Beginning with Acrobat 5.0,

Adobe provided an easy to use GUI (Graphical User Interface) to overwrite the default threshold value.

Changing the value of the Sampling for Images above from 450 pixels per inch to 300 per inch is purely optional.

Leaving the setting at Adobe’s default of 450 is OK and acceptable. If your printer workflow does not use a CT/

LW workflow (CT/LW workflows include all Gravure workflows and some CTP workflows that involve Creo

Brisque, ArtQuest, etc.) the higher resolution images can be processed with minimal downsampling.

Compression: leave this setting – Automatic and Quality: leave this setting – Maximum. These settings specify that the continuous tone images will be compressed. By selecting Automatic, you allow Distiller to analyze each image and choose between two possible compression schemes. Your image will either receive a JPEG-Maximum Quality scheme (lossy) or a ZIP 8-bit compression scheme (lossless). Most of your images will have the JPEG-Maximum quality compression applied to them which is the safest JPEG compression option offered for PDF 1.4 or earlier.

JPEG2000 is only offered for PDF 1.5 (Acrobat 6.0) or above and currently cannot be processed through today’s RIP technology. Images that contain large flat tints with sudden shifts of color, such as the “screen captures” shown here, will be compressed with ZIP (lossless) compression.

JPEG compression has been a part of printing workflows since PostScript Level 2 was introduced in 1992. Most people have been using it without even realizing it.

Monochrome Images

Sampling: turn this setting – OFF. Embedded copy-dot images are monochrome bitmap images and must not be resampled because this can produce artifacts (moire’ looking pattern) when previously screened images are printed.

Compression: leave this setting - CCITT Group 4. This lossless compression algorithm works well with monochrome images. The actual setting configured here should not affect the usability of your files.

Refer to Appendix B for a detailed explanation of other compression options available. Before you select one of these compression settings, you should consult and test the setting with your printer.

Anti-Alias to gray: leave this setting - OFF. This resampling technique will DESTROY your images and should not be used.

Policy Radio Button

The Policy button displays a dialog box that allows you to specify the minimal resolutions you will accept in your

PDF file. Distiller can check (preflight) and warn or error if the resolution is below your specified value.

Change all three values to the values shown to the right.

244 pixels per inch is a typical value for both color and grayscale images. 1200 pixels per inch is a good quality for monochrome (lineart) images. Set the warning flags to

Warn and continue.

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Fonts Tab

Embed All Fonts: leave this setting – ON. This setting informs Distiller that all fonts used in the page need to be embedded and Distiller therefore embeds them. Some font manufacturers do not license or allow you to embed their fonts.

Certain fonts, including some TrueType font flavors, with the “do not embed” permission tag will not embed regardless of the Distiller settings that have been configured. In this case, the printer is required to have a matching font to image the page correctly. Even if Distiller allows you to embed the font, the manufacturers license agreement may prohibit it. If you are not sure if your fonts can be legally embedded, refer to your license agreement or contact the font manufacturer.

Subset Embedded Fonts When Percent of Characters Used is less than: change this setting to – 100%. This setting forces

Distiller to subset and embed only the used font characters instead of embedding the entire font character set.

Subsetting will make the PDF file smaller, but limits the editability of the text later. Any text editing of the PDF file will require that the entire font be embedded before the text can be changed. Be aware that all Type 3, TrueType, and

CID fonts will always be subsetted regardless of this setting.

When Embedding Fails: change this setting to – Cancel Job. This setting aborts the distiller process without creating the PDF when a font that is used in a document cannot be embedded. If you activate this setting, all PDF files that successfully process through the Distiller will have embedded fonts.

Embedding - Always Embed: This window allows you to list all fonts that you want to embed in every PDF, even if the font is not used. In the screenshot shown above, nothing has been added to the “Always Embed” list because only the fonts used in the PDF page are desired.

Some people prefer to move the “Base 14 Fonts” into the “Always Embed” column. By doing this, the PDF itself is not negatively affected but it will increase the PDF file size (a minor drawback).

Embedding - Never Embed: This window allows you to list all fonts that are used in the document that you do not want to embed. Since it is a requirement to embed all fonts, do not list fonts here.

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Color Tab

Adobe Color Settings, Settings File: select the pull-down option – Color Management Off. This option disables all color management functionality of Distiller and Adobe’s built-in color management will not be used. By turning “Color

Management Off,” continuous tone images with attached ICC profiles are not automatically converted to a device- independent color space (Lab) and all device-dependent color spaces (CYMK) are maintained.

“Color Management Off” is now a standard “One Button” setting in all newer Adobe products. Starting with Photoshop 6.0 and Illustrator 9.0, all Adobe applications have the same “One Button” setting to disable all color management. In Acrobat 4.0, the setting to “Leave Color Unchanged” has a similar effect.

Device-Dependent Data, Preserve Overprint Settings: leave this setting – ON. This setting preserves overprint settings from applications, such as QuarkXPress, InDesign, and Illustrator.

Preserve Under Color Removal and Black Generation: turn this setting – OFF. This How2PDF guide specifies working with images that are in the CMYK color space (non color-managed). Therefore, any Under Color Removal or Black

Generation has already been built into the images.

Transfer Functions: select the pull-down option – Remove or Apply. The special effect of curving of a continuous tone image can be added through a transfer function. Transfer functions are normally used to compensate for dot gain and are output device specific. The setting Remove deletes all transfer functions from continuous tone images. Any of these special effects/curves need to be saved into the image prior to distilling. The setting Apply applies the transfer function to you PDF file.

Preserve Halftone Information: Leave this setting – OFF. Screening and halftone information can be saved into an image using an application such as Photoshop. In some RIPs/workflows this setting overwrites the settings on a high resolution output device. There have been occurrences when these settings were set for LaserWriter quality output which results in poor quality. By removing this information, the print facility controls their high resolution output settings for optimal results.

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Advanced Tab

Options, Allow PostScript file to override Adobe PDF Settings, turn this setting – OFF. Activating this setting allows the

PostScript file to overwrite your Distiller Job Option settings. Note that Distiller Job Option settings are desirable for producing consistent PDF files.

Allow PostScript XObjects, leave this setting – OFF. In previous versions of PDF (1.3 and earlier), PostScript language fragments (XObjects) could be embedded into a PDF. These objects could only be used for printing to a PostScript device, they had no effect when viewing on-screen or to a non-PostScript device. Adobe recommends extreme caution when using this feature, Quad/Graphics does not recommend it at all.

Convert gradients to smooth shades, leave this setting – ON. This setting will cause gradients to be converted to smooth shades and will appear much smoother when output to a PostScript 3 device.

Convert smooth lines to curves, leave this setting – OFF. Designed to speed up CAD drawings, this setting will reduces points in curves to speed the display and reduce file size.

Create Job Definition Format (JDF) file, leave this setting – OFF. This is a new option added in Acrobat 6.0, the Job

Definition Format (JDF) Specification is owned and maintained by the International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and PostPress (CIP4). This option has limited capabilities today, but is the key to the future. For more information on JDF and its capabilities visit www.cip4.org.

Preserve Level 2 copypage semantics, leave this setting – ON. This setting deals with the semantic differences between

PostScript Level 2 and PostScript 3. By activating this setting, it allows you to image to both PostScript Level 2 and

PostScript 3 devices.

Preserve Overprint Settings, leave this setting – ON. This setting preserves overprints assigned by applications such as

QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, and Adobe Illustrator.

Overprint default is nonzero overprinting, leave this setting - ON. This settings affects how colors are painted (laid down).

By leaving it on, the underlying colors are maintained (not erased).

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Save Adobe PDF settings inside PDF file, leave this setting – ON. This setting will embed the Distiller “Job Options” settings used to create the file. The settings are accessible through Document > File Attachments from the Acrobat 7 UI

(user interface).

Save original JPEG images in PDF if possible, leave this setting – ON. This setting is used to pass JPEG images through

Distiller without recompressing them. Distiller decompresses the JPEG images to ensure that they are not corrupt, but it will not recompress valid images, passing the original image through untouched. Gained are performance and no loss of metadata or image data (compress/decompress/re-compress). Images must meet the following criteria: image at correct resolution (no downsampling) and no more that 10% image is to be cropped.

Save Portable Job Ticket inside PDF file, turn this setting – OFF. This setting allows you to embed job ticket information.

Most PDF workflows generate their own job tickets and do not require a job ticket to be embedded in the original

PDF file.

Use Prologue.ps and Epilogue.ps, leave this setting – OFF. The prologue and epilogue files allow you to append PostScript code to a PDF file when it is created. These .ps files are installed with Acrobat and are located in the “Macintosh

HD>Library>Application Support>Adobe PDF>Data” folder of the Macintosh and the “C:\Documents and

Settings\All Users\Documents\Adobe PDF 7.0\Data” of the PC (Microsoft Operating System). Both files must be customized before they have any influence on Distiller or your PDF.

Document Structuring Conventions (DSC), Process DSC comments, leave this setting – ON. DSC comments contain detailed information about the PDF file. These comments are helpful in troubleshooting and by leaving this setting on, you can maintain access to the individual DSC controls.

Log DSC warnings, leave this setting – OFF. If a file has errors in DSC structuring, the errors are logged into a file.

Preserve EPS information from DSC, leave this setting – ON. By turning this setting on, the DSC comments from an embedded EPS file are maintained.

Preserve OPI comments, turn this setting – OFF. When creating PDF files that contain embedded high resolution images, the OPI comments are not necessary. Embedding these comments can cause your printer’s OPI-aware workflow to fail. The OPI workflow initiates a search for high resolution images outside the PDF container when this setting is turned on. Preserving OPI comments can also inhibit effective preflighting.

Preserve document information from DSC, leave this setting – ON. This setting preserves the DSC document structure of the PDF.

Resize page and center artwork for EPS files, leave this setting – ON. If you drop an EPS (Encapsulated PostScript File) file onto Distiller that does not contain page size information (bounding box), the page size will default to the “default page size” setting located in the General Tab. When this setting is activated, Distiller reads the bounding box information of the EPS and uses this bounding box information to define the page size. The artwork will be centered within the document.

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Standards Tab

The Output Intent Profile Name assigned needs to reflect the expected output

(proofing) condition.

PDF/X Reporting and Compliance Enforcement, choose the setting – PDF/X-1a. Choosing this option generates a PDF file in accordance with the PDF/X-1a:2001 (ISO 15930-1:2001) standard and generates a compliance report that is written to the message log. When not compliant: choose the setting – Cancel job. Cancels job if PDF cannot pass compliance

(i.e., CMYK images).

If Neither TrimBox nor ArtBox are Specified, choose the setting – Set TrimBox to MediaBox with offsets (Points): Left: 0, Right:

0, Top: 0, Bottom: 0. If the TrimBox is not set by the application, the TrimBox is set to the MediaBox coordinates of

0,0,0,0. Both QuarkXPress and InDesign set the TrimBox correctly.

Set BleedBox to TrimBox with offsets (Points): Left: 0, Right: 0, Top: 0, Bottom: 0. If the BleedBox is not set by the application, the TrimBox is set to the MediaBox coordinates of 0,0,0,0. InDesign sets the BleedBox correctly.

Default Values if Not Specified in the Document, Output Profile Name:, leave the profile named – U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2.

This settings indicates the characterization of the printing condition for which the document has been prepared. If a document does not specify an output intent name, the value provided here is used. By setting U.S. Web Coated

(SWOP) v2, you are stating your file has been prepared for SWOP.

OutputCondition:, leave this field either <BLANK> or enter the name – U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2, assuming your document was prepared for SWOP. This is an optional field (string) which, if present, describes the output condition is a form meaningful to the human operator.

RegistryName (URL):, leave the URL named – http://www.color.org. This is an optional field that provides a URL at which more information regarding the output intent registry may be obtained.

Trapped:, change this value to either the list name of – Insert False or Insert True. The value indicates the state of the trapping within the file. Set the value in accordance to the state of the trapping of your file. Either a value of True or

False is required for PDF/X compliance.

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Important Acrobat 9.0 Distiller Presettings

As with any program, the configuration of an application’s preferences plays an important role in how the application handles specific situations. The preference files are slightly different between the Macintosh and the Windows platform. Both are described below.

Also described in this section is the Font Handling set-up. This controls how Distiller deals with certain font issues such as embedding and duplicate names.

Preference Settings for a Macintosh Environment

To open the Preferences dialog window on the Macintosh platform choose “Distiller>Preferences…” from the menu bar.

Notify When Watched Folders are unavailable: if you are using hot folders, turn this setting – ON. Distiller monitors directories or hard drives on your local machine or network that have been designated as hot folders. If these folders/ drives become unavailable, Distiller will warn you.

Delete Log Files for successful jobs: turn this setting – ON. If your file fails the distilling process, an ASCII log file is created. Creo’s Distiller Assistant plug-in always creates a log file. By turning this setting on, the log file will be created and automatically deleted for all PDF files that are successfully distilled.

Output Options, Replace existing PDF file if possible: turn this setting – ON. When Distilling PostScript files individually (not via hot folders), this setting will cause Distiller to prompt you to select the destination to place the completed PDF files.

With the setting turned off, Acrobat will place the PDF files back into the directory where the PostScript files resided.

Output Options, Ask to replace existing PDF file: turn this setting – OFF. This setting will cause Distiller to ask you if it is OK to overwrite an existing PDF with the same name. With the setting turned off, Acrobat will automatically overwrite the existing PDF.

Output Options, Ask for PDF file destination: turn this setting – OFF. If this setting is turned on, Distiller will automatically launch the default Acrobat viewer and display your newly created PDF and slow down the distilling process.

Preference Settings for a Windows Environment

To open the Preferences dialog window on the Windows platform choose “File>Preferences…” from the menu bar.

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Startup Alerts, Notify when Watched Folders are unavailable: turn this setting – ON (if you are using hot folders). Distiller monitors directories or hard drives on your local machine or network that have been designated as hot folders. If these folders/drives become unavailable, Distiller will warn you.

Startup Alerts, Notify when TEMP folder is nearly full: turn this setting – ON. This setting notifies you when your startup volume has less than 1MB of remaining disk space available. Acrobat Distiller requires temporary disk space to convert PostScript to PDF. The temporary disk space required by Distiller is approximately twice the PostScript file being distilled. If you get this warning, stop and remove unnecessary data from your hard drive immediately.

Output Options, Ask for PDF file destination: turn this setting – OFF. When Distilling PostScript files individually (not via hot folders), this setting will cause Distiller to prompt you to select the destination to place the completed PDF files.

With the setting turned off, Acrobat will place the PDF files back into the directory where the PostScript files resided.

Output Options, View PDF when using Distiller: turn this setting – OFF. If this setting is turned on, Distiller will automatically launch the default Acrobat viewer and display your newly created PDF and slow down the distilling process.

Log Files, Delete Log Files for successful jobs: turn this setting – ON. If your file fails the distilling process, an ASCII log file is created. Creo’s Distiller Assistant plug-in always creates a log file. By turning this setting on, the log file will be created and automatically deleted for all PDF files that are successfully distilled.

Font Handling

The Font Locations defaults play a very important role in how Distiller addresses specific font situations. When

Distiller is not able to locate a particular font, the locations defined in this window are used to search for the font. If the font was not embedded or opened with a font manager (i.e., Font Reserve or Suitcase), Distiller looks to the Font

Locations before aborting. In our Distiller settings, we have set Distiller to fail if a font can not be found.

Font Locations also allows you to control how Distiller addresses duplicate TrueType and PostScript font names. If you determine that the base 13 TrueType fonts are not desired, this setting will allow you to remove them from a distilled PDF.

Distiller uses the settings in the Font Locations list when it detects a missing font. Distiller then looks in the list for additional locations where the font may be found.

To open the Font Location menu, choose “Font Locations…” under the “Settings Menu” of the menu bar.

Acrobat Distiller uses this window to define the location of fonts. When a page is distilled, the Distiller searches for

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the required font in the following sequence: first it looks in the PostScript file for the embedded font; then it checks your font management utility (i.e., Font Reserve or Suitcase) to see if the font has been loaded, and finally it looks at the locations defined in the Font Locations window. If the font is not found in any of these locations, it will not be embedded.

Ignore TrueType versions of standard PostScript fonts: turn this setting - ON. This setting allows Distiller to resolve conflicts between PostScript and TrueType fonts that have the same name. When this setting is activated, the PostScript version of a duplicate font name is embedded (an excellent feature).

Open Type Fonts

Over the years font management has been somewhat confusing. Not only did we have PostScript fonts and TrueType fonts, but we had the Macintosh and PC flavors of each font. Enter OpenType fonts; this relatively new font format is a cross-platform font format that is the result of a joint effort between Adobe and Microsoft. First off, this format allows us to have one font for that works on multiple platforms (Macintosh, Windows, and Unix). Secondly, this format allows you to exceed the 256 character limit in a single font that its two predecessors had. In other words, you can now have 65,000 different glyphs (characters) in one font. Ligatures, small caps, fractions, and other special characters that can now be contained in one single font. Some say the art of typography was lost when the Desktop

Publishing era began. Perhaps the art is back.

Adobe has a portion of its web site dedicated to explaining OpenType fonts, what they are, and how they can be useful to you as we advance technology and digital graphic arts to the next level. To read more about OpenType fonts go to Adobe’s web site ( www.adobe.com

) and search for “OpenType” or you can directly access the page at http://www.adobe.com/type/opentype/main.html

Does this impact me and should I really care? Yes, Adobe has converted its entire Adobe Font Library over to the OpenType format and will discontinue selling Type 1 (PostScript) fonts. Quad/Graphics believes that other font foundries will be doing the same. Apple and Microsoft’s new operating systems also include and integrate

OpenType font technology into the core.

Note: You and your printer will need PostScript 3 RIP’s to process OpenType fonts. In most preflight ap-

plications, OpenType fonts will be tagged as Identity-H, CID, or double-byte fonts.

MacOS X Font Management

Along with the Aqua interface and UNIX under the hood, there is a whole new way of managing and storing fonts.

Unlike the previous version of the Apple OS, MacOS X stores fonts in multiple locations. They have also introduced another font format called dfonts that may conflict with your existing PostScript or TrueType fonts.

Apple has written a whitepaper that explains how to manage fonts in the new Panther operating system. The article is titled “Using and Managing Fonts in Mac OS X” and a PDF of the article can be downloaded from the Pro section of their web site at www.apple.com/pro/ .

Along with the above mentioned OpenType articles, this whitepaper is a very informative and should be read by all users.

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Layout to PDF, via PostScript

This section provides a QWik Start Reference for creating a good PDF, via PostScript, from both QuarkXPress 8 and

Adobe InDesign CS4. As mentioned earlier, you can also directly export PDF from both QuarkXPress and InDesign.

Refer to the next section beginning on page 31, titled Layout to PDF, via Direct Export for those step-by-step proce-

dures. This section uses a two step process for creating a uniform PDF: Step one – will write PostScript directly from the application. By using PostScript, all of the new PDF features that are not supported by PostScript RIPs are filtered out before the PDF file is generated. Step two – the PostScript file automatically uses Adobe Acrobat Distiller to create a reliable, single source PDF.

Creating PostScript, for Later Distillation, from QuarkXPress 8

Printing PostScript directly to a file or using a Virtual Printer, page 26, to create a PostScipt file for later distillation will not create PDF Trim or Bleed boxes in the correct locations. Since the trim box is used to auto postion the page into an imposition template, we need to use the “Export Option” to create a PostScript file that has the trim and bleed boxes in the correct location. This section details the steps required to successfully create a PostScript, that can be distilled, and have the trim and bleed boxes in the correct location.

The following diagrams show the proper print dialog settings necessary to create good PostScript from QuarkXPress v8. The latest version of QuarkXPress 8.x can be downloaded from Quark’s web site at www.quark.com/service/ desktop/downloads/ .

Quark’s default “Export PDF Preference“ needs to me modified so that QuarkXPress will export a PostScript file instead of generating a PDF files. To do this select

“QuarkXPress>Preferences” from the menu bar. Change the default PDF preference from “Direct to PDF” to “Create PostScript File for Later Distilling” as show in the illustration directly to the right.

By default, QuarkXpress will export the

PostScript file directly to the Desktop. You will need to manually initiate the distillation process to generate your PDF file.

You can also set-up the PDF Export preference to directly export the PostScript file into a predefined Distiller Watch Folder.

That way the PostScript is converted to a

PDF file automatically. Refer to Acrobat

Distiller’s help for detailed information on how to set up a Distiller watch folder.

The following settings assume that your QuarkXPress document(s) were built to trim. The final trim size of the book is the values entered in the “File>Document Setup…” window of QuarkXPress. The document bleed (0.125”) extends into the pasteboard.

Please note that these settings will make your final PDF document exactly 1” larger than the QuarkXPress document size you entered. For example, if you entered a QuarkXPress document of 8.125” by 10.75”, the resulting PDF will be 9.125” by 11.75”. This includes crop marks and bleed.

To set-up an PDF export style for exporting PostScript select “Edit>Output Styles…” from the QuarkXPress menu.

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Select “Show: PDF Output Styles” from the drop down menu. Select “New>PDF” from the menu and name the style you are about to create. In our example, we named it “My PDF Style For PS.”

Refer to the below tab illustrations to obtain the proper settings for each tab of your “My PDF Style For PS.”

These settings will create a page size exactly 1” larger than your defined page size and once distilled will include both the PDF trim and bleed boxes required by your printer.

. Pages Tab Settings

Pages Tab Settings

Meta Data Tab Settings

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Compression Tab Settings

Fonts Tab Settings

Centered

Width: 0.003”

Length: 0.334”

Offset: 0.166”

Include Bleed Marks

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The proper compression and resolution settings will be defined later on in Acrobat Distiller

Color Tab Settings

Optional Setups

Marks Tab Settings

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Bleed Tab Settings

Symmetric

Amount: .125”

Clip at Bleed Edge

Transparency Tab Settings

OPI Tab Settings

JDF Tab Settings

Summary Tab Settings

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Using Adobe PDF 9 Virtual Printer

Unlike with QuarkXPress, you can print PostScript to disk or to a virtual printer and the PDF trim and bleed boxes will be created in the correct position in your PDF pages. This section illustrates how to print to a virtual printer, instead of printing the PostScript to file, manually dropping it into Distiller, or printing the PostScript file to a predefined Distiller watch folder.

When you installed Acrobat on your local workstation, Adobe automatically created a virtual printer named Adobe

PDF 9. When this printer is selected and you print to it, the operating system creates a PostScript file, automatically sends it to Acrobat Distiller, then saves the PDF file to the Desktop.

To verify you have the Adobe PDF printer installed in a Macintosh computer running MacOS X, the Printer Setup

Utility application can be located in the Application>Utilities folder of your local hard drive. In the windows environment, use the tool bar to navigate to Startup>Printers to launch the printer utility.

Important: By default, the Adobe PDF 9 printer uses Acrobat Distiller’s Default Settings to create the printed PDF file. These Default Settings are the ones selected when you launch the Acrobat Distiller application. Make sure you choose the correct Settings file before using the Adobe PDF 9 Virtual Printer for production. Quad/Graphics suggests you use our settings, defined in these guidelines.

Distiller’s Default Settings

You have the option to override the default Distiller Settings from the Print… window. The PDF settings can be changed by choosing Print…, selecting the Adobe PDF 9 printer and then selecting PDF Options. Here, you have the options to choose another set of Distiller settings from the Adobe PDF Settings: drop down menu. The safest method is to launch Acrobat and make your desired Distiller Settings the default.

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Creating PostScript, for Later Distillation, from Adobe InDesign CS4

The following diagrams show proper print dialog settings necessary to create good PostScript from Adobe InDesign

CS4. If you do not have the latest version of Adobe InDesign CS4, use the “Help>Updates…” menu or it can be downloaded from Adobe’s web site at www.adobe.com/support/downloads/idmac.htm

. This section explains how to create a PDF from the PostScript then Distillation process. As with QuarkXPress, the process of creating

PostScript, then Distilling, removes any PDF features that are not compatible with a PostScript 3 output device. The

next section beginning on page 31, titled Layout to PDF, via Direct Export explains the step-by-step procedures on how

to export a PDF directly from InDesign.

These settings assume that your InDesign document(s) were built to final trim. The final trim size of the book is equal to values entered in the “File>Document Setup…” window of

InDesign. As with QuarkXPress, the document’s bleed extends into the pasteboard area. Bleed can be defined two ways; either in the Document Setup (shown here) or in the Print dialog windows. When defined in the Document Setup, InDesign will create visible trim guide in the pasteboard that will allow you to snap the bleed objects to the exact edge of the bleed.

When pages are output from InDesign, it is the “Paper Size,” not the “Document Size,” that defines the final size of the PDF file.

Therefore, the printer “Paper Size” must be a user defined custom size that is proportional to the InDesign “Document Size.”

As with QuarkXPress, the “Paper Size” will be made exactly 1” larger (height and width) than the document to allow space for bleed and all appropriate marks.

Note: The trim and bleed measurements will be used to define the Trim/Bleed boxes in the PDF.

In the above illustration, we will use a defined document size of 9.125” by 11.75” with a .125” bleed. The following illustrations will create a 10.125” by 12.75” document that is exactly 1” larger than the InDesign document defined above.

The following is the sequence of print dialog tab settings used to generate PDF, via PostScript, from InDesign CS.

General Tab Settings

Selects Adobe PDF 9 printer

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Marks and Bleed Tab Settings

Marks: Turns on basic crop marks and Page information and sets the marks offset and thickness.

Weight: 0.25

Offset: 0.29165

Uses bleed that was setup in the Document

Setup. When unchecked, bleed amount can be specified here.

Setup Tab Settings

Choose Custom Paper Size, the page width and height are in automatic mode and will self adjust to 1” larger than your defined Document setup when Marks and Bleed tab is setup correctly (refer to next illustration).

Page Position: Centered

Notice how page position changed from pre-

vious figure, page 27

Output Tab Settings

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Color Management Tab Settings

Graphics Tab Settings

Sends entire image data to Distiller

Entire font is downloaded

Downloads all fonts, even those specified in

PPD as being resident in printer

Uses PostScript 3 language

Advanced Tab Settings

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Create a new “Transparency Flattener” preset using these settings.

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Summary Tab

Saves your presets so you do not have to reconfigure each individual tab everytime you go to print a page.

Option 1: Print PostScript to Disk

This will allow you to save a PostScript file for later

Distillation. Only use this step if you want the PostScript creation and distillation to be separate steps. Using Print via

Adobe PDF 9 Printer combines both the PostScript creation and distillation into one easy step.

From the Printer: selection window choose PostScript® File, choose the destination, and name the file and print.

Option 2: Print via Adobe PDF 9 Virtual Printer

Using the Adobe PDF 9 virtual printer is just like printing to any printer on your network. Select Print…, choose the

Adobe PDF 9 printer, make the proper InDesign Printer Tab adjustments (see previous pages), then select the Print radio button. A PostScript file is automatically created, the page is distilled using default Distiller Settings (or others specified in PDF Options tab), and the PDF file is saved to the desktop.

PDF Options Tab

Indicates Adobe PDF 9 has been selected as default printer

Selects a specific set of

“Job Option” settings , other than the default.

Select this option if you want Acrobat 9 to automatically launch after PDF creation.

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Layout to PDF, via Direct Export

This section provides a QWik Start Reference for creating good PDF, via Direct Export, from both QuarkXPress 8

and Adobe InDesign CS4. Refer to the previous section beginning on page 22, titled Layout to PDF, via PostScript for

step-by-step procedures on creating PostScript and then Distilling.

As a printer, our preferred method on creating PDF is through PostScript, instead of direct export. This is how our own Quad/Graphics Imaging creates PDF and the way we feel we can provide the safest and securest PDF for print production. As these programs have matured, direct export has stabilized and we do receive PDFs on a daily basis that were created using direct export. When done correctly, they are as safe and reliable as their Post-

Script counterparts.

Direct Exporting PDF from QuarkXPress 8

QuarkXPress uses Global Graphic’s JAWS PDF Libraries to create all PDF files that have been directly exported from their application. Because of this, some of the terminology used is slightly different when configuring the export options. Gone are the choices for the various PDF compatibilities (all direct exported files are created using

Acrobat 4 (PDF 1.3) compatibility) and the choices for transfer functions, black generation, etc. Your configuration options have been minimized and therefore are easier.

Note: Unlike InDesign, when directly exporting PDF files from QuarkXPress you are still using a PostScript/

distillation process to create the PDF. PostScript is created under the hood, hidden, but it is still there.

XTension Prerequisites

Disable the “OPI.xnt” (Quark XTension). The can be done by manually dragging the XTension out of the “QuarkXPress

8.0>XTension” folder and placing it in the “XTension Disabled” folder or by using the Utilities>Utilities Manager… utility in the application menu. In either case, you must relaunch the application. If this XTension is not removed your file will contain OPI comments (regardless of settings) and transfer functions. The presence of these two items can cause problems at your printer.

Configuring Export PDF Default Preferences

To configure the exports defaults of the QuarkXPress 8.x application, this needs to be done when NO documents are open. If a document is open, the preference defaults apply to that document and not the application.

Select “QuarkXPress>Preferences…” from the menu and then select the “Application>PDF” tab.

Select Direct to PDF

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Configuring Export PDF Style

9.125” by 11.75”. This includes crop marks and bleed.

To set-up an PDF export style for exporting PostScript select “Edit>Output Styles…” from the QuarkXPress menu. Select “Show: PDF Output Styles” from the drop down menu. Select “New>PDF” from the menu and name the style you are about to create. In our example, we named it “My PDF Export Style.”

Refer to the below tab illustrations to obtain the proper settings for each tab of your “My PDF Export Style.” These settings will create a page size exactly 1” larger than your defined page size and once distilled will include both the

PDF trim and bleed boxes required by your printer.

Pages Tab Settings

Name your PDF Style

Meta Data Tab Settings

Hyperlinks Tab Settings

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Compression Tab Settings

Automatic ZIP/JPEG Low is equivalent to Adobe Distiller’s “Compression:

Automatic (JPEG) - Image Quality:

Maximum” settings. The term

“Low” refers to applying a low

(minimal) amount of compression, not low quality.

Color Tab Settings

Fonts Tab Settings

Optional Setups

Marks Tab Settings

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Centered

Width: 0.003”

Length: 0.334”

Offset: 0.166”

Include Bleed Marks

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Bleed Tab Settings

Symmetric

Amount: 0.125”

Clip at Bleed Edge

Transparency Tab Settings

JDF Tab Settings

Summary Tab Settings

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Direct Exporting PDF from Adobe InDesign CS4

The following diagrams illustrate how to create good PDF files from Adobe InDesign CS4 (aka Adobe InDesign 6) using their built-in direct export feature. Unlike QuarkXPress 6 or later, Adobe does not generate PostScript under the hood when they directly export PDF files from InDesign. The entire PostScript step is omitted. Because of this,

PDF files created by direct export can contain live-transparency. Something that most printers do not want at this

time. Refer to the Transparency in PDF section, located on page 41, of these guidelines.

Having the latest version and patch level is important. To verify that you have the latest version of InDesign, or any other application in the Creative Suite, use the “Help>Updates…” menu.

This section explains how to create print-ready PDF using InDesign’s PDF export feature. The previous section,

beginning on page 22, titled Layout to PDF, via PostScript, explains the step-by-step procedures on how to create

PostScript for later distillation from InDesign. It is assumed that the user is knowledgeable regarding the InDesign application and the document has been created correctly.

These settings assume that your InDesign document(s) were built to final trim. The final trim size of the book is equal to values entered in the “File>Document Setup…” window of InDesign. As with QuarkXPress, the document’s bleed extends into the pasteboard area. Bleed can be defined two ways; either the Document Setup (shown here) or in the “Print” dialog windows. When defined in the “Document Setup,” InDesign will create a visible trim guide in the pasteboard that will allow you to snap the bleed objects to the exact edge of the bleed.

Note: The trim and bleed measurements will be used to define the Trim/Bleed boxes in the PDF.

Please note that these settings will make your final PDF document exactly 1” larger than the InDesign document size you entered. For example, if you entered a InDesign document size of 8.125” by 10.75”, the resulting exported

PDF will be 9.125” by 11.75”. This includes crop marks and bleed.

The following is the sequence of settings we recommend you use to direct export PDF from InDesign CS4. These settings will create a PDF/X-1a:2001 compliant file that will automatically flatten all transparency and layers during the export process. For more information about transparency and flattening, refer to the Transparency in PDF section

located in Appendix A, starting on page 41 of this document.

Select “File>Adobe PDF Presets>Define…” from the menu.

Adobe PDF Presets Window

Select “New…” to create a new Preset

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General Tab Settings

Compression Tab Settings*

* These guideline settings will apply

JPEG compression (lossy) to images and ZIP compression (lossless) to screen captures. These guideline settings will also downsample all color and grayscale images above 300 dpi to

300 dpi.

Quad/Graphics suggests these settings because we found that this compression setting provides smaller file sizes without compromising quality.

Refer to Appendix B for alternative (ZIP, no compression, downsampling) image tab settings.

Marks and Bleeds Tab Settings

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Weight: 0.125

Offset: 0.29165

If the bleed was not predefined in the document setup, you must uncheck

Use Document Bleed Settings and manually enter in the proper bleed amount.

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Output Tab Settings

Advanced Tab Settings

Create a new “Transparency

Flattener” preset using these settings.

Summary Tab Settings

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Appendix A: Overprints and PDF

Correct handling of overprints continues to be one of the most common problems with PDF. The printer must ask himself whether to honor your overprints or to overwrite them? Not processing overprints correctly can dramatically change the look of your page. It is standard policy of Quad/Graphics to honor your overprints, unless advised otherwise. Why? More and more applications are supporting overprint preview (i.e., Acrobat, InDesign,

Illustrator), some trapping programs use overprints to apply traps to PDF objects, and we assume the file is supplied to us correctly. Changing overprints does alter the integrity of the page.

Some of the contributing factors for this confusion are as follows:

1. While QuarkXPress allows you to assign overprints and knockouts to objects on the page, it does not allow you to preview them. You must create a PDF and preview it in Acrobat to correctly see your page.

2. Acrobat Reader 6, and earlier versions, do not support Overprint Preview. With the release of Acrobat Reader 7, and later, Adobe added Overprint Preview support to it and it is still a FREE Reader.

Note: All Adobe applications have the Overprint Preview option turned OFF as part of their default in-

stallation, so you will need to manually activate it the first time you use the software application. Once activated, it stays on until you manually turn it off.

3. Acrobat 4, or earlier, do NOT support Overprint Preview. This option was introduced with the release of Acrobat 5. As with Acrobat Reader 7, the option is OFF by default. With the introdution of Acrobat 9 and Acrobat 9 Reader, overprint preview preferences can be set to Only for PDF/X Files, Never, Always, and

Automatic. The default setting is Only for PDF/X Files and you may want to switch it to Always or Automatic.

4. Your proofer does not support overprint operators.

These four factors, usually a combination of them, is the reason overprints remain a problem. Below is our “Overprint

Test Page” that quickly allows you to visually check to see if your PDF viewer supports and is displaying overprints correctly. The contents of the page completely changes when “Overprint Preview” is supported and activated. The thumbnails on the right will assist you in determining if you have your current viewer configured to displaying overprints correctly.

✗

✓

Overprint ✓

not set-up correctly or not supported!

✓

Overprint ✓

is functioning correctly

Good

Right

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✗

WARNING✗

Your Overprint is either not set-up correctly or not supported!

Bad

Wrong

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If your page did not view correctly, either your version of Acrobat does not support the “Overprint Preview” mode or your application has not been configured correctly. The following section will provide details on configuring

Acrobat (5, 6, and 7) and Acrobat Reader 7 to preview overprints correctly.

You can also download our “Overprint Test Page” from our FTP web site test and verify if both your Acrobat Viewer and selected color proofer actually supports

overprints. Use the same log-in information provided on page 4 of this docu-

ment. This test page is located in the “PDF_Samples” folder. The file is named

“OverprintTestPage.pdf.”

Quad/Graphics would like to acknowledge and thank Global Graphics for allowing us to use their PDF/X Overprint patches in both our “How2PDF Guidelines” and

“Overprint Test Page.” You can download the complete documentation. Both the

Basic and Expert versions of their test patches (see examples at right) can be downloaded at www.globalgraphics.com.

By placing the Global Graphics’ “pdfx-overprint-expert.eps” patch on every page

(place in your template like any other colorscale), everyone will immediately know if the proof was created from the layout application or the final print-ready PDF. Look at the example on the right and notice how the four color patches changed to read

Non-PDF Workflow when the PDF creation step was skipped.

Global Graphics’ Basic Patch

Another common problem is that the submitted proof was not created from the file that was released. Designers and production personnel have been known to create

Global Graphics’ Expert Patch

the proof directly from the layout application (InDesign or QuarkXPress), go through the approval process, and then generate the final PDF file at a later date. This provides a greater possibility for components of the page (i.e., images, fonts) to become modified (intentional or accidental) and no longer match the supplied contract proof.

Global Graphics’ Expert Patch

When printed directly from layout application

Configuring Acrobat’s Overprint Preview Option

Configuring Acrobat 5, 6, 7, and 8 to display overprints is a simple one-step process. Look under the Advance menu tab, and if the Overprint Preview is checked, your application has already been properly configured to view overprints. If it is not checked, simply select Advanced>Overprint Preview and your application is now configured.

Configuring Acrobat Reader 7 and 8 is a little different. The overprint preview option is hidden in the Preferences tab. Choose Adobe Reader>Preferences, select Page Display (left), and then check/select the Overprint Preview option.

The configurations of Acrobat 9 and Acrobat Reader 9 the overprint controls changed again. With The overprint preview option is in the Preferences tab. Choose Acrobat>Preferences or Adobe Reader>Preferences, select Page Display (left), and then check/select either Automatic (auto detects if page has overprints and automatically turns preview on) or

Always (overprint preview is always on) is selected as the Use Overprint Preview option.

Once you have configured your version of Acrobat to properly preview overprints, go back to the “Overprint Test

Page” on the previous page. This time, turn Overprint Preview both ON and OFF and notice how the use of overprints has completely changed the content of this page. Now imagine being supplied a job where the supplier has no knowledge whether they used overprints (viewer or proofer) and the difficulties it can cause a printer.

Using Output Preview to Check Your Overprints

If you are not sure whether you used overprints or where you assigned them to your page, use the “Output Preview…,” under the Advanced menu tab, to visually verify your overprint conditions. Output Preview allows you to check your overprints either by using the Color Warnings or Separations features. Color Warnings displays the overprinting areas by placing a solid colored tint over those affected areas. The following illustration, our Overprint Test Page,

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demonstrates where on the page overprints were used. By selecting Show Overprinting from the Warnings area, the solid tint verifies what we had already determined by turning the Overprint Preview ON and OFF.

Informative Tip

Regardless of the current setting, your page will display as though

Overprint Preview is ON when the

Output Preview window is open.

When you also select Rich Black from the dialog box, the text that reads “3 Overprint 3 is functioning correctly” changes to a light blue (see above inset). Rich Black is defined as any 100% Black objects that have underlying colors beneath them and this black text is overprinting the underlying red tint below.

Note: Just because 100% Black text is being shown as Rich Black does NOT always mean it is 100% Black with an

overprint operator assigned to it. Objects (text or tint) colored 100% Black with any underlying color will also display as Rich Black. For example, text colored 100% Black and 30% Cyan, with the overprint attribute On or OFF, will display as Rich Black. Why? Because the 100% Black has an underlying color, 30% Cyan in this example.

Another feature of the “Color Warnings” option are the ability to display various color spaces, spot colors, images, solid colors and smooth shades. These settings are located under the Show: pop down menu. You can also simulate

ICC profiles, black ink, and paper white print conditions.

Another way to check and see if your

100% Black objects actually overprint or knockout an area is to use the Separations preview feature. By selecting Separations, from Preview palette, and deselecting

Process Black, you see that our black indeed overprints the red tint.

Another very useful feature of the Output

Preview option is the ability to specify and show the Total Area Coverage (TAC) of a page.

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Transparency in PDF

A Printers Perspective & General Information

Since the introduction of the PDF 1.4 specification (Acrobat 5), “live-transparency” has been one of those features creators love and printers fear. Why, you may ask? Simply, it exceeds the feature set of PostScript, requires flattening for output, various flatteners are different, and the conversion to PostScript is a mandatory step in the process (Adobe RIPs).

What is flattening? Flattening is the conversion of overlapping transparent assigned objects that are converted (flattened) into opaque objects. Before objects have been flattened, they are referred to as containing “live-transparency.”

Why do printers hesitate or resist accepting PDF files that contain “live-transparency” for print?

1. Our quest is to provide our customers a quality service with zero-defects. That includes minimizing errors by prevention. In printing, color is perceptive (everyone’s eyes see it differently), but with the mechanics of a page (image placement, text, rules, tints, etc.) are clear and precise. You can debate the shade of a red, but whether a font is or is not 12 point Palatino is not open for debate.

2. The flatteners used by the various vendors (proofers, workflows, and even between versions of the same software package) are different and can create different results. Some RIPs do not support transparency flattening. In these cases, the “live-transparency” is simply converted to opaque objects. The object on top simply knocks out the underlying object. Transparent effects are removed.

3. If you supply a “live-transparency” PDF along with a flattened contract proof, the flattener that created your supplied contract proof must match our flattening process 100%. If not, hopefully the difference was obvious enough to be caught before it got on press, created spoilage, or an undesirable product for you and your consumer.

4. Even if we both use Adobe or Adobe OEM products, unless kept up to date, our flatteners could render different results. All our workflows are under maintenance contracts, but there is a lag between the flattener in the latest Adobe release and the OEM’s release. Example, although Acrobat 7 is officially released to consumers, the development kits to their OEM’s and the integration into their products takes months to cycle through, therefore, the PDF you print from Acrobat 7 uses a different version of the flattener than

Acrobat 6. If you drop PDF files on your proofer, whose flattener and what version of that was used? Just remember, depending on timing, upgrade disciplines, and coordination, one of us is likely to be using a different version that could affect the integrity of the final press run.

5. If we both own a copy of Acrobat 7, then we both use the same flattener, right? Only if you open and print from Acrobat 7, the printer opens each file in Acrobat 7 and flattens it, and we both use the exact same flattener settings. Workflows vary and most drop the PDFs directly on the proofer and it does the “PDF to PostScript” conversion (simplicity and speed). Printers spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy automated PDF workflows that use PDF natively to trap, preflight, color manage, and even impose. Regardless of PDF workflow,

PDFs must be converted to PostScript (Adobe Rips) before they can be output. The difference is where in the process this conversion happens. Using Acrobat to flatten files is a “poor mans” solution that is a very manual operation, time consuming, and requires discipline to ensure both sides use the same flattener settings.

6. The supplied contract proof is the “Bible” so to speak, even if we have the latest Adobe technology and our file flattens differently than yours who is correct? Who is liable? How do we fix it? We would need your flattener to match your output exactly.

We realize the financial implications to both companies when problems arise on press and what we perceive as a high risk feature. In light of the variances in flatteners and our limitations/dependencies on PostScript, most printers want to minimize the risk to both themselves and their customers by limiting PDF to the features that are directly supported by PostScript 3, which means restricting incoming PDFs to PDF 1.3 (Acrobat 4) compliant or earlier. PDF 1.3 files are fully PostScript 3 compliant. PDF/X-1a files do not support transparency at this time.

PDF/X-1a:1999 is a subset of the PDF 1.2 specification (Acrobat 3), PDF/X-1a:2001 is a subset of the PDF 1.3 specification (Acrobat 4), and PDF/X-1a:2003 is a subset of the PDF 1.4 specification (Acrobat 5), but explicitly prohibits the use of “live-transparency.” The latest version of the PDF/X specification, named PDF/X-4:2007, supports “livetransparency’ and was released in 2007.

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Adobe has released numerous white-papers explaining “live-transparency,” the various effects, and how the flattening process works. These papers are an excellent resource and if you are using the transparencies features of

Adobe’s products they are a wealth of information. To find these papers go to

www.adobe.com

and search the entire site for “creative suite transparency.” Here you should find multiple documents on the subject and specifically a document named “Getting Started with Transparency using Adobe Creative Suite 2 Software.”

All of Adobe’s documentation states you should submit “live-transparency” to your printer and let them flatten

it, which is opposite to what we have outlined here. Quad/Graphics is communicating and working with Adobe to find a solution that benefits everyone involved.

How do an InDesign

, Illustrator, Photoshop, or PDF document that contains “live-transparency” get flattened?

1. Creation of PostScript to generate either a hard copy proof or PDF file, via Acrobat Distiller, or another

PostScript to PDF generator. Since PostScript does not support transparency, the supporting application flattens it as the PostScript is created.

As explained on the previous page, all PDFs must be converted to PostScript for print output. It happens

under the hood when you directly drop PDF files into a proofer and when you buy a highly sophisticated

PDF workflow from a supplier. Even our elaborate PDF workflows that drive our platesetters (offset) and engravers (gravure) must create PostScript at some point.

2. Directly export a PDF/X-1a or a PDF 1.3 (Acrobat 4) or earlier versions of the PDF specification directly from the native application. The procedures on how to directly export PDF from InDesign CS4 is explained

on page 35 of these Guidelines, QuarkXpress is on page 31.

3. Use the “Transparency Flattening” option, in Acrobat 9. This option and how to use it is explained on page

48 of this section.

Transparency Design Considerations

When designing a page, the individual objects are stacked like plates in your design. This is why we have to use the “Bring Forward,” “Bring to Front,” “Send Backward,” and “Send to Back” options to get objects that overlap

(touch) positioned correctly on a page. This stacking order is VERY important when transparency is involved, especially drop shadows. The following section will illustrate how stacking could effect high resolution vector data, converting it to rasterized (CT) data, sometimes causing undesirable results. Some objects may not actually physically overlap when created, but they will overlap when a transparency filter, such as drop shadow, is applied to an object(s). These filters spread beyond individual bounding box limitations of the object that you see when you select them in the layout application.

This unexpected overlap could be forcing high resolution text/tints to rasterize.

Logo

This rich black layer is above the “Logo” text layer

Example Logo

Our example logo is made up of twelve individual layers, all tints and no rasterized (CT) image data has been used. Nine of these layers have some type of transparency effect assigned

“This rich black...”

Drop Shadow

Magenta circle

Green circle

Blue circle

“Logo” text

Yellow circle

Cyan circle

Red circle

Flare effect

to them. In the stacking order illustrations, these layers have both a light yellow background and

Cyan oval

Stacking Order of Layers

Black rule

are tagged with a T (left side of graphic). Actually, there are only eight transparent layers created by the designer, the ninth layer ((“Logo” text), second layer from the top) has a drop shadow effect assigned to it and that drop shadow became the ninth layer. The six overlapping color circles use transparency effects to create additional four colors where they overlap. In the above illustrations, the text that reads This rich black layer is above the “Logo” text layer was intentionally placed on the topmost layer of the logo. Although the large Logo text and the small text don’t actually touch in the design, notice the drop shadow actually spreads under the smaller text.

At the time of this writing Adobe’s InDesign is the only page layout that supports live-transparency.

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Logo

This rich black layer is above the “Logo” text layer

Logo

This rich black layer is above the “Logo” text layer

Original Logo InDesign’s Flattener Preview Rasterized Data High Resolution Data

The above illustration demonstrates how the original logo is flattened for proof/print output. By using either

Acrobat’s or InDesign’s Flattener Preview, we can evaluate what is going to happen to the file at output. In the above example we are using InDesign’s Flattener Preview. (Both flatteners are explained in the next section). The contrast between the red tint and the black text makes it difficult to see in the above illustrations, but the small black text is not included as part of the transparent objects (red tint). Although no rasterized data was used in this design, notice that in all of the drop shadows, a large portion of the cyan oval, and even portions of the color wheel, had to be rasterized. Why? The use of the drop shadow and the “Flare” tool effects are what caused the rasterization in this example. Since the “Logo” text is still a key-stroked font (not converted to outlines), its entire bounding box was rasterized. The drop shadow was specified to have a .13” offset in the X/Y coordinates, so the rasterization extends an extra .13” to the bottom and right of this bounding box. In this example, the flare effect is completely inside the drop shadow boundaries and therefore did not increase the size of the rasterized area. The areas that remain high resolution were all the rich black text, portions of the cyan oval and left color wheel, and all of the right color wheel.

By examining the stacking order of the twelve layers, notice that all of the rich black text (Logo and This rich black layer is above the “Logo” text layer) are the two top layers of the stack and above the drop shadow layer.

The drop shadow effect requires rasterization and will rasterize all objects it overlaps in the stacking order. Regardless of the flattener settings, these areas are converted to rasterized data.

“This rich black...”

Drop Shadow

Magenta circle

Green circle

Blue circle

Cyan oval

Stacking Order of Layers

“Logo” text

Yellow circle

Cyan circle

Red circle

Flare effect

Black rule

Important, whether you supply live-transparency to your printer or not, always remember these areas have to

be flattened before output. Just like PDF files have to be converted to PostScript, until technology advances, livetransparency also has to be flattened.

Logo

This rich black layer is below the “Logo” text layer

Logo

This rich black layer is below the “Logo” text layer

Original Logo InDesign’s Flattener Preview Rasterized Data High Resolution Data

For this example, the smaller black text, This rich black layer is below the “Logo” text layer, was intentionally placed underneath the larger Logo text in the stacking order. The InDesign’s Flattener Preview graphic shows what areas will be forced to rasterized data. Notice that most of the smaller black text is included in the red tint, thus identifying it as data to be rasterized. The Rasterized Data graphics is a separated view showing exactly what portions of the logo were converted to rasterized data and clearly showing that a portion of the black text was rasterized. Depending on the resolution settings of the flattener used, the text could become very jagged. In the

High Resolution Data you can see the areas that remained vector data and maintain its high resolution.

The graphic to the right illustrates that the smaller black text was positioned below the logo and drop shadow layers. This subtle change in the stacking order was the only design difference between this and the previous example.

The difference is the word “below” was changed to “above” to state the actual position of the text.

As you can see, subtle and probably unintentional change in the stacking order can have a dramatic effect on the output and quality of your text.

“Logo” text

“This rich black...”

Magenta circle

Green circle

Blue circle

Cyan oval

Stacking Order of Layers

Drop Shadow

Yellow circle

Cyan circle

Red circle

Flare effect

Black rule

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This rich black layer is below the “Logo” text layer

Original Logo InDesign’s Flattener Preview Rasterized Data High Resolution Data

Evaluating the above Original Logo, you will notice that it looks exactly like the previous example. The smaller black text is still below the Logo text. But the InDesign’s Flattener Preview, Rasterized Data, and High Resolution

Data graphics showing what gets rasterized and stays vector has changed dramatically. Why? What has changed?

The difference is the Logo text was converted to outlines and the L was brought to the front.

For various reasons fonts are converted to outlines, either because the designer thinks that by converting to outlines the font license agreement no longer applies (this is not necessarily true, read your font licensing agreement) or to customize the characters, to some it is simply common practice. Although Adobe recommends you not do this because font hinting is lost, they provide you with the option to convert to outlines in both their InDesign and

Illustrator applications.

When converting fonts to outlines, the stacking order of the outlined text is stacked from right to left, moving bottom to top. Using the word “design,” as an example, the “d” goes down first and becomes the bottom layer and the letter “n” would be last and become the top layer of the grouping. Just as the word was typed, the “d” was laid down first, followed by the “e” (one layer above) and so forth.

During the design process, objects are always being reshuffled, so in this example we intentionally repositioned the L to the top most layer of the graphic (see illustration on right). We expected and meant to illustrate how the L‘s drop shadow would cover and rasterize most of the o directly beside it. However it was not anticipated that the g‘s drop shadow would also

L of “Logo” text o of “Logo” text g of “Logo” text o of “Logo” text

“This rich black...”

Magenta circle

Green circle

Blue circle

Cyan oval

Stacking Order of Layers

L’s Drop Shadow o’s Drop Shadow g’s Drop Shadow o’s Drop Shadow

Yellow circle

Cyan circle

Red circle

Flare effect

Black rule

overlap to impact that same o (directly to its left), leaving just the fraction of the letter as high resolution data. Luckily the flattener preview clearly shows this additional problem.

Looking at the InDesign’s Flattener Preview, the Rasterized Data, and the High Resolution Data graphics you see that the drop shadows now follow the bounding boxes of the individual letters, instead of the font’s text bounding box on the previous page, resulting in more of the cyan oval being maintained at a high resolution. The circle of the

“flare” effect now shows through and is rasterized. The small text is now broken into a lot more pieces than before.

The entire left color wheel is now high resolution. The number of layers has grown from twelve to eighteen, due to the outlining of the word Logo. Each letter and its drop shadow were assigned to their own independent layers.

When transparency effects are used, also consider the following:

1. If text has been effected by the transparency and has to be flattened, consider the font’s typeface. If the font is serif, the serifs could become jagged or flattened depending on the flattener resolution setting. In our example, the use of a sans-serif font was the least offending.

2. If your job is to be printed as gravure, no matter the resolution setting, the rasterized data has to be downsampled to approximately 300 dpi during engraving.

3. Depending on the output device, thin white lines (stitching) or other artifacts could appear where the transition between high resolution and rasterized data occur. In our example, it is where the cyan oval transitions.

4. Trapping of flattened files, trapping engines cannot trap objects that have been rasterized. In our examples, the areas of the color wheel and rich black text that are high resolution (vector) can be trapped. Although the eye can detect the differences in the rasterized data, the trapper cannot and they will not be trapped.

5. Double check areas where fonts have been outlined. Critical graphics, such as our logo example, with transparency effects could force them to lose high resolution data that might cause a costly reprint.

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Recommended Transparency Flattening Settings and Overview

Both InDesign and Acrobat have Transparency Flattener settings that let you control how the flattener preview will emulate the actual flattening process. It is important that the preview settings you use are the same as the settings used to flatten your

PDF file for final output. If not, what you preview, how you think your page will flatten, and how it is actually flattened for output could be very different. Our suggested flattener presets palettes for both applications are shown on this page and their settings are explained below.

InDesign Palette

Name (InDesign only feature) is the name you specify for your preset. Adobe supplies three presets: Low, Medium, and High Resolution. You cannot edit these default presets, but you can create your own. In our example, we named ours Print Quality - QW.

Our recommended flattener settings are identical to those of Adobe’s High

Resolution with one exception, the Line Art and Text Resolution setting. They have this setting at 1200 dpi and we recommend changing it to 2400 dpi.

Since most offset output devices use either 2400 or 2540 dpi resolutions and some fonts have very fine serifs, we feel this is a safer setting. We sacrifice file size (higher resolution) for quality.

Raster/Vector Balance specifies how much of the transparency area will be converted to rasterized data. A setting of 0 would rasterize the entire area, while a setting of 100 minimizes the amount of rasterized data, leaving as much data in vector format as possible.

Depending on complexity, overlapping, and stacking order of the elements on the page, all contribute to the amount of data that is rasterized.

Acrobat Palette

Change this setting to 100 to ensure maximum quality and to minimize the rasterization.

Line Art and Text Resolution setting specifies the resolution of the vector objects that have to be flattened.

Note: Like with Acrobat Distiller, any existing rasterized data (i.e., screen captures, scanned or digital images)

will NOT have their input resolution increased to this resolution. A 300 dpi image, will remain 300 dpi, while the effected vector objects (rules, tints, and text) are rasterized to the specified setting assigned here.

This setting should match the output resolution of the final high resolution output device. Since most offset devices are 2400 dpi, we recommend that you change this setting to 2400 dpi.

Gradient and Mesh Resolution setting specifies the resolution for gradients, drop shadows, and feathering effects that have to be flattened for output.

Change this setting to 300 dpi to ensure maximum quality and to minimize the file size. A higher resolution entered here will not improve the quality level.

Convert All Text to Outlines, when selected, will convert all text to outlines on both pages of the spread. Fonts have hinting information embedded in them, when converted to outlines this information is lost and the fonts appear thicker when printed on low-resolution devices or viewed on screen (Acrobat). When output on high-resolution image/platesetters the text will output at its normal thickness.

When transparency effected text is flattened, it becomes rasterized and these areas will appear thicker when viewed or output at lower resolutions. By converting the entire spread to outlines, all the text will display and print at the

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same thickness at these lower resolutions. This is less offensive to the naked eye.

We recommend that you leave this option turned OFF when flattening your PDF files.

Convert All Strokes to Outlines, just like with “Convert All Text to Outlines”, this setting will convert all strokes on the spread to outlines (filled paths). Selecting this option will make the strokes appear thicker at lower resolutions, but provides a visual uniformed thickness when viewed in Acrobat or output at lower resolutions.

We recommend that you leave this option turned OFF when flattening your PDF files.

Clip Complex Regions reduces the area (boundaries) between vector and rasterized artwork that cause stitching.

Stitching is where the vector and rasterized areas meet. There is the possibility of thin white lines being present where this stitching occurs.

Selecting this option can make extremely complex clipping areas that can cause a proofer/printer’s RIP to error out.

When the “Raster/Vector Balance” is set to 100, this option is automatically turned OFF (grayed out). Refer to the

Adobe documentation for more information.

Preserve Overprint (Acrobat only feature) maintains the overprint effect between a transparent object and its underlying objects.

This setting should always be set to ON.

Using InDesign CS4’s Transparency Flattener Preview Option

As discussed earlier, the stacking order of the objects effects how the flattener handles the object. The Transparency Flattener Preview will show you exactly how your file will be flattened.

No guessing on what gets rasterized and what remains vector, this tool will create a visual representation that informs you where transparency is used, what parts gets rasterized, what becomes outlined, and what is not effected by the flattener.

The quickest way to check if your page has transparency objects on it is to look at Pages palette. If the spread page is

solid white, no transparency is present. If the spread page has a checkered board pattern, at least one of them contains transparency. When dealing with facing pages (spreads), if either page contains a transparent object, both pages will indicate there is a transparent object present.

Configuring InDesign Transparency Flattener Presets…

InDesign’s Transparency Flattener Preview uses predefined transparency flattening presets as discussed on the previous page. To add your own custom preset select “Edit>Transparency Flattener

Presets…” from the menu bar.

Select New from the Transparency Flattener Presets palette.

Name your preset accordingly. In our example, the preset was named Print Quality - QG.

Change all the settings to the ones shown in the adjacent illustration and click OK.

Select OK to save your new preset.

Once you have the preset saved, open the page you want to preview and select “Window>Output>Flattener Preview”

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from the menu bar. The Flattener Preview palette will appear. By default, the Highlight: option is set to None. Selecting the pop-down menu for Highlight you will see nine options to choose from.

Understanding the Various Highlight Options

None, palettes default setting and disables preview when selected.

Rasterized Complex Regions, highlights complex areas that have been rasterized as defined by the “Raster/Vector

Balance” settings in the flattener preview settings. Since our recommended “Raster/Vector Balance” setting is set to

100, thus disabling Clip Complex Regions, nothing will be highlighted.

Transparent Objects, highlights all objects that have transparency assigned to them. Blends, drop shadows, and partial opacity fall into this category.

All Affected Objects, highlights all objects that either have transparency assigned to them or have been overlapped by a transparent object.

Affected Graphics, highlights all placed objects that either have transparency assigned to them or have been overlapped by a transparent object.

Outlined Strokes, highlights all strokes that will be outlined either because they have been effected by transparency or because the “Convert All Strokes to Outlines” was selected in the flattener preview settings.

Outlined Text, highlights all text that will be outlined either because they have been effected by transparency or because the “Convert All Text to Outlines” was selected in the flattener preview settings.

Raster-fill Text and Strokes, highlights all text and strokes that have been raster-filled because of flattening.

All Rasterized Regions, Highlights all areas that must be rasterized for output due to transparency and the limitations of PostScript.

All the highlight options mentioned above have their merits, but we will focus on just three of them. These three will assist you in identifying potential problems related to transparency and object stacking order. Transparent

Objects will identify all transparent effects on your page, Raster-fill Text and Strokes will isolate and clearly show the text and stoke areas that will be rasterized, and All Rasterized Regions will show all the vector areas that must be rasterized when your page is flattened.

This rich black layer is below the “Logo” text layer

When InDesign’s Flattener Preview palette is opened, the Highlight option default selection is None and the page displays normally, see example

L of “Logo” text o of “Logo” text g of “Logo” text

Note: This How2PDF Guidelines PDF file contains live-transparency that

you can use for testing. Extract this page and place it into an InDesign doco of “Logo” text

Magenta circle

Green circle

Blue circle

Cyan oval ument to test the flattener yourself or you can download our Transparency

Test Page from the FTP site (see pages 5 and 6 for details) and place

that page in InDesign. It contains all three versions of the logo examples shown here.

Select the Highlight pop-down menu and choose Transparent Objects to see all the objects that contain transparency. Next, choose the Preset we created earlier named Print Quality - QW. Select the Auto Refresh Highlight box to turn it ON. The objects on the page that contain transparency will be highlighted in red, all other objects will be a ghosted back and gray. See example B.

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L’s Drop Shadow o’s Drop Shadow g’s Drop Shadow o’s Drop Shadow

Yellow circle

Cyan circle

Red circle

Flare effect

Black rule

Just because an object contains transparency does not necessarily mean it will have to be rasterized. If the object can be flattened into a new vector object, then a new vector object is created. The color wheel on the left and some of the flare effect strokes can be flattened into new vector objects. The color wheel on the right was rasterized because of the drop shadow above it.

To accurately evaluate what text, if any, that will require rasterization select the Highlight option named Raster-fill Text and Stroke. Once the screen auto refreshes, the text and stroke that have to be rasterized will be highlighted in red. In example C, most of the white stroke around the o and g in Logo are rasterized along with either partial or complete rasterization of the smaller black text that reads ch black layer is below the “logo” text laye. The glyphs that are a partial vector/raster combination should be of concern and need to be evaluated if restacking the objects could eliminate some of these ras-

terization issues. As discussed on page 41 of this document.

To see exactly what areas will be rasterized by the flattener, choose All

Rasterized Regions from the Highlight pop-down menu. See example D, the areas in red are the regions of the page that will have to be rasterized for output. Notice that part of the cyan oval that was underneath the drop shadows had to be converted to raster data. This creates another area of concern, where the vector portion of the oval merges with the raster portion can cause stitching problems (thin white lines). This will be an unfortunate, unavoidable as long as we are dependant on PostScript RIP technology.

Note: Stitching problems and rasterized text issues are magnified for gravure printing. Offset output de-

vices can accept and output rasterized data over 300 dpi, up to a maximum of 2400 dpi. But gravure re-

quires a CT (continuous tone) image no greater than 300 dpi. The partial or complete text, example C, has

to resampled to 300 dpi regardless of the flattener settings. Making the rasterized text appear thicker and more jagged looking.

InDesign’s Flattener Preview only allows you to preview how a file will be flattened. You can use the flattener preset to flatten the file, but you must either export a PDF 1.3 (Acrobat 4) compatible file or print PostScript to actually flatten it. Acrobat’s Flattener Preview allows you to both preview and flatten a PDF file from the same tool palette.

Using Acrobat 9’s Transparency Flattener Preview Option

While Acrobat 9 has a flattener preview option that previews and even allows you to actually apply the flattening settings to the file, just remember that problems created by layering are almost impossible to correct in a PDF file.

To properly fix the problem, you need to fix the source document or in this case the native InDesign file.

Unlike InDesign, Acrobat does not allow you to save flattener presets that can be easily retrieved and applied. The flattener controls will have to be configured every time you relaunch Acrobat. Once configured, the settings are maintained until you quit the application and relaunch.

To open the Transparency Flattening option select “Tools>Print Production> Transparency Flattening” from the menu bar.

For some reason, Adobe has limited the number of preview Highlight options used for viewing and understanding how the transparency will be flattened. The highlight options are limited to five, compared to InDesign’s eight, omitting the two we consider the most important. The omitted ones are All Rasterized Regions and Raster-fill Text and

Stroke. Hopefully, Adobe will add these two options to the next release of Acrobat.

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Understanding Acrobat’s Highlight Options

Rasterized Complex Regions, highlights complex areas that have been rasterized as defined by the “Raster/Vector

Balance” settings in the flattener preview settings. Since our recommended “Raster/Vector Balance” setting is set to

100, thus disabling Clip Complex Regions, nothing will be highlighted.

Transparent Objects, highlights all objects that have transparency assigned to them. Blends, drop shadows, and partial opacity fall into this category.

All Affected Objects, highlights all objects that either have transparency assigned to them or have been overlapped by a transparent object.

Expanded Patterns, highlights all patterns that will be expanded if effected by transparency.

Outlined Strokes, highlights all strokes that will be outlined because they have been effected by transparency or because the “Convert All Strokes to Outlines” was selected in the flattener preview settings.

Configure the Flattener Settings as shown here. These are the same settings that were used in InDesign, except for Preserve Overprint has

been added. A detailed explanation of these settings is on page 44 of

this document.

Once you have the Flattener Settings configured, select the Refresh radio button to see a new colorized preview of your page with these flattener settings applied. See Example E.

Select the Transparent Objects from the Highlight pop-down menu to view all your transparent objects on the page. Of the five options, this one gives you the best view of what will happen when the page is flattened.

The transparent objects are highlighted in red and everything else is grayed out. See Example F.

Note: If your page does not contain transparency, all the Highlight options will be disabled/grayed out.

E F

To zoom or magnify an area, click in the preview window. Press the space bar and drag to pan around the preview.

Pressing the Refresh button returns you to a “fit-in-window” preview.

Look for text or any other critical areas that may cause print problems when rasterized.

From here you can apply your flattener settings to the PDF page or pages by selecting the correct page sequence (all, current, or range of pages) and selecting the Apply radio button. Once done, you will need to re-save your flattened

PDF file to maintain these changes.

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Appendix B

If you do not want image compression applied to your job or you are uncomfortable with lossy compression, this section will supply the facts to help you in your decision making process.

The “Alternative Compression Tab Settings” section provides you two alternative settings. The first shows how to configure Distiller so your images are not compressed during the distilling process. The second applies only lossless compression schemes to your images.

The “Different Compression Schemes in Distiller” section explains the various image compression options and how they work.

The “Resampling Algorithms” section explains the differences in the three algorithms and how they impact both performance and quality.

Alternative Compression Tab Settings

The following settings demonstrate how to configure the “Compression Tab” so that no compression will be applied to your continuous tone images. Note that the Monochrome Images are still compressed, but with a lossless compression.

Continuous Tone Images Without Data Compression

In the setting shown below, Downsampling was intentionally left active. If both the Compression and Downsampling were turned off, PDF files will become extremely large. Even with Downsampling on, these PDF files can be quite large and unmanageable.

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Continuous Tone Images With LossLess Data Compression

In the setting shown below, the compression has been set to ZIP. This is a lossless compression scheme that will not harm your image. PDF files that are distilled with these settings will be much smaller than the uncompressed images, but larger than a JPEG (lossy) compressed PDF. Warning - the quality level MUST be set to 8-bit. Any other setting will destroy the quality of the images. Also, Downsampling is intentionally left active.

Different Compression Schemes in Distiller

Part of Acrobat’s robust functionality is the various ways it can store an image. Among them you have the option not to compress the images, apply a lossless compression scheme, or apply various levels of lossy compression to continuous tone images. Monochrome images have an entirely different set of available compression schemes. This section provides a brief explanation of the different compression schemes. If you do not feel comfortable with the compressions suggested in this guide, this section will help.

For Color Bitmap and Grayscale Images

None - this setting implies that image(s) will not be stored with any type of compression. If individual images were compressed before the distilling process they will be decompressed during the distilling process.

ZIP - a lossless compression method that works well with large areas of single colors. Screenshots are a good example of images that compress well using ZIP. When this compression method is applied to image(s), no data is lost and they are not altered in any way. You must use 8-bit Quality when using ZIP. If you select 4-bit Quality, data will be lost which reduces the quality of your images. The “busier” the image, the less compression will be applied.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) - a lossy compression. It works well with continuous tone images and should be used in moderation. When images are stored with JPEG compression, data is removed and this may reduce image quality. The greater the compression value, the more data that is removed and the smaller the file size becomes. JPEG uses very complicated compression algorithms to minimize visual quality loss. Acrobat supplies five levels of quality and it is recommended that you use the “Maximum Quality” setting to maintain image quality.

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Automatic (JPEG) - this setting is not a compression method. When “Automatic” is chosen, it allows Acrobat Distiller to analyze the image and determine which compression scheme (ZIP or JPEG) would best suit each image. If

“Acrobat 6 (PDF 1.5)” or higher is selected, it forces the compression to JPEG (does not use JPEG2000).

JPEG2000 - Option only available when “Acrobat 6 (PDF 1.5)” or higher compatibility is selected - both a lossy and lossless compression scheme, depending on how you configure your settings. Compression scheme is a wavelet based method of compressing images. The lossless compression schemes work like their JPEG counterparts. You have the ability to specify tiling and lossless compression as well. Note this is not compatible with PostScript RIPs and is not backward compatible with Acrobat 5 or earlier.

Automatic (JPEG2000) - Option only available when “Acrobat 6 (PDF 1.5)” or higher compatibility is selected - this setting is not a compression method. When “Automatic” is chosen, it allows Acrobat Distiller to analyze the image and determine which compression scheme (ZIP or JPEG2000) would best suit each image.

For Monochrome Images

CCITT G3 (International Coordinating Committee for Telephony and Telegraph - Group 3) - a black and white compression method originally developed for Fax machines. It is a lossless compression scheme that only works with

1-bit images. G3 is used by most fax machines and compresses images one row at a time.

CCITT G4 (International Coordinating Committee for Telephony and Telegraph - Group 4) - another black and white compression scheme for 1-bit images. It is also a lossless compression scheme that will not alter the quality of your images. G4 is more of a general-purpose compression scheme that creates smaller file sizes than G3.

ZIP - refer to this definition in the previous “For Color Bitmap and Grayscale Images” section.

Run-Length - a lossless compression that produces the best results for images that contain large areas of black and white. This compression scheme is rarely used for PDF.

Resampling Algorithms

The term resampling refers to the changing of the pixel dimensions of an image. Images are resampled to achieve the proper ppi (pixels per inch) to the lpi (lines per inch) ratio. The ratio of ppi to lpi is doubled. For a 150 lpi output, you need a 300 dpi image. The Distiller application will not increase the number of pixels in an image which is referred to as “upsampling.”

Distiller has the optional ability to downsample images as specified by application settings. When an image is downsampled, data (pixels) are deleted from the image. To downsample an image, Distiller looks at the surrounding pixels and calculates a new pixel. The “interpolation method” that is specified determines how the pixels are added. Distiller has three different downsampling routines:

Subsampling - the application looks at a sample area of an image and chooses a pixel in the center. It then replaces the entire area with that pixel at a specified resolution. Subsampling is the fastest sampling method but the resulting images are not as smooth and continuous looking. This form of sampling IS NOT recommended.

Average Downsampling - the application looks at a sampled area of an image and averages the pixels. It then replaces the entire area with the average pixel color at a specified resolution. Average downsampling is the ‘middle-of-theroad’ option when it comes to both sampling time and quality. This form of sampling IS NOT recommended.

Bicubic Downsampling - the application looks at a sampled area of an image and uses a weighted average to determine pixel color. It yields better results than the simple averaging method of downsampling. Bicubic is the slowest but most precise method of downsampling, resulting in the smoothest tonal gradations. This form of sampling IS recommended.

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Appendix C: QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 8

Adobe Acrobat 8.x was shipped in September of 2006. It is typical for all software manufacturers to release maintenance patches to their software packages from time to time. Always keep your software at the latest version.

Updates can be obtained three different ways:

1. Launch Acrobat 8.x application (not Distiller). Select: “Adobe Online….” It is located under the “Help” menu. Select: “Updates” and follow the instructions.

2. Check the Adobe web site

www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html

frequently to verify you have the latest version.

3. Call Adobe Customer Service at (800) 272-3623.

Software Requirements

1. Be sure to use the final version , Acrobat Distiller 8.1.3.

2. Preflight (optional, but highly recommended) - Acrobat 8.x Professional ships with its own built-in preflight module. If you prefer another package, there are several other good PDF preflight software packages available. Preflight will verify that your final PDF is print-ready. These packages identify problems and enable you to correct them before the final PDF files are sent to the printing plant.

The PDF/X tab does validate (preflight) some of the data. This validation does not include items such as image resolution. You will need a preflight application to do more in-depth checks.

General Tab Settings

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QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 8.1.3

(cont.)

Image Tab Settings*

* These guideline settings will apply JPEG compression (lossy) to images and ZIP compression (lossless) to screen captures.

These guideline settings will also down-sample all color and grayscale images above 300 dpi to 300 dpi.

Quad/Graphics suggest these settings because we found that this compression setting provides smaller file sizes without compromising quality.

Refer to Appendix B for alternative (ZIP, no compression, downsampling) image tab settings.

Fonts Tab Settings

Color Tab Settings

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QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 8.1.3

(cont.)

Advanced Tab Settings

Standards Tab Settings

The Output Intent Profile Name assigned needs to reflect the expected output

(proofing) condition.

Saving Your Job Options File

Save your newly created “Job Options” file back to your local hard drive. On a Macintosh, the path will be

“Macintosh HD:Users:Your Home Directory:Library:Application

Support:Adobe:Adobe PDF:Settings” and for the PC (Microsoft Operating System) the path will be

“C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Adobe PDF

8.0\Settings.”

If you would prefer to download the above settings instead of creating your own, the QG Suggested 8 (PDFX-1a) job option settings file can be downloaded from the following FTP site:

Quad/Graphics, Inc. Technology Group

Host: ftp://specs.qwinc.com

Password: pdf

Directory: Job_Option_Settings

File name: Acro6_PDFX-1a.sea or Acro6_PDFX-1a.zip

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QWik Start Reference: QuarkXPress 7, via PostScript

The following diagrams show proper print dialog settings necessary to create good PostScript from QuarkXPress

7.2. These settings assume that your QuarkXPress document(s) were built to trim. The final trim size of the book is the values entered in the “File>Document Setup…” window of QuarkXPress. The document bleed (0.125”) extends into the pasteboard.

Neither version 7 or 8 creates the trim and bleed boxes when printing PostScript to file. So like with Acrobat 9, see page 22, you will need to Export PostScript and Distill it. In order to export

PostScript the PDF preference needs to be modifed from it’s default. To modify the preference select QuarkXPress>Preferences from the menu and modify the PDF tab as illustrated.

Pages Tab Settings

Meta Data Tab Settings

Hyperlinks Tab Settings

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QWik Start Reference: QuarkXPress 7, via PostScript

(cont.)

Compression Tab Settings

Color Tab Settings

Optional Setups

Marks Tab Settings

Fonts Tab Settings

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QWik Start Reference: QuarkXPress 7, via PostScript

(cont.)

Bleed Tab Settings

Transparency Tab Settings

JDF Tab Settings

Summary Tab Settings

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QWik Start Reference: QuarkXPress 7, via Direct Export

The following diagrams show proper print dialog settings necessary to export PDF/X-1a files from QuarkXPress

The default installation has the PDF preference set to export

PDF. Please verify that this setting has not been modified. To verify the preference select QuarkXPress>Preferences from the menu and compare it to the PDF tab illustrated to the right.

Pages Tab Settings

Meta Data Tab Settings

Hyperlinks Tab Settings

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QWik Start Reference: QuarkXPress 7, Direct Export

(cont.)

Compression Tab Settings

Color Tab Settings

Optional Setups

Marks Tab Settings

Fonts Tab Settings

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QWik Start Reference: QuarkXPress 7, Direct Export

(cont.)

Bleed Tab Settings

Transparency Tab Settings

JDF Tab Settings

Summary Tab Settings

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QWik Start Reference: InDesign CS3, via PostScript

When pages are output from InDesign, it is the “Paper Size,” not the “Document Size,” that defines the final size of the PDF file. Therefore, the printer “Paper Size” must be a user defined custom size that is proportional to the

InDesign “Document Size.” As with QuarkXPress, the “Paper Size” will be made exactly 1” larger (height and width) than the document to allow space for bleed and all appropriate marks.

Note: The trim and bleed measurements will be used to define the Trim/Bleed boxes in the PDF.

In the below illustrations, we will use defined document size of 8.125” by 10.75” with an .125” bleed. The following illustrations will create a 9.125” by 11.75” that is exactly 1” larger than the InDesign document defined above.

General Tab Settings

Selects Adobe PDF 8.0 printer

Setup Tab Settings

Page Position: Centered

Notice how page position changed

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QWik Start Reference: InDesign CS3, via PostScript

(cont.)

Marks and Bleed Tab Settings

Marks: Turns on basic crop marks and Page information and sets the marks offset and thickness.

Weight: 0.25

Offset: 0.29165

Uses bleed that was setup in the Document

Setup. When unchecked, bleed amount can be specified here.

Output Tab Settings

Quad/Graphics, Inc. Technology Group

Graphics Tab Settings

Sends entire image data to Distiller

Entire font is downloaded

Downloads all fonts, even those specified in

PPD as being resident in printer

Uses PostScript 3 language

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QWik Start Reference: InDesign CS3, via PostScript

(cont.)

Color Management Tab Settings

Advanced Tab Settings

Create a new “Transparency Flattener” preset using these settings.

Summary Tab

Saves your presets so you do not have to reconfigure each individual tab everytime you go to print a page.

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QWik Start Reference: InDesign CS3, via Direct Export

When pages are directly exported from InDesign, Adobe automatically adds an extra .83” to the document size to allow for bleed area, registration marks, etc. When creating PostScript from InDesign, we have you create a custom paper size that is 1” larger than the document size. Unfortunately, Adobe does not allow us to control this setting during export and, by default, they add the above mentioned .83” to it. So a document size of 8.125” by 10.75”, with an .125” bleed, will create a final PDF page with a Media Box (paper size) of 8.955” x 11.58”. Using the settings below, the exported PDF file from your

InDesign CS document will be perfectly centered within the page.

The following is the sequence of settings we recommend you use to direct export PDF from InDesign CS3. These settings will create a PDF/X-1a:2001 compliant file that will automatically flatten all transparency and layers during the export process. For more information about transparency and flattening, refer to the Transparency in PDF section located in Appendix A, starting on

page 4 of this document.

Adobe PDF Presets Window

General Tab Settings

Compression Tab Settings*

* These guideline settings will apply JPEG compression (lossy) to images and ZIP compression

(lossless) to screen captures. These guideline settings will also down-sample all color and grayscale images above 300 dpi to 300 dpi.

Quad/Graphics suggest these settings because we found that this compression setting provides smaller file sizes without compromising quality.

Refer to Appendix B for alternative (ZIP, no compression, downsampling) image tab settings.

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QWik Start Reference: InDesign CS3, via Direct Export

(cont.)

Marks and Bleeds Tab Settings

Offset: 0.29165

If the bleed was not predefined in the document setup, you must uncheck

Use Document Bleed Settings and manually enter in the proper bleed amount.

If grayed out bleed measurements are set to zero (0), this indicates that the bleed was not defined in the document setup and therefore the bleed will need to be entered manually.

Advanced Tab Settings

Create a new “Transparency

Flattener” preset using these settings.

Summary Tab Settings

Quad/Graphics, Inc. Technology Group

July 2010

Page 66

Quảng cáo

Creating Print-Ready PDF’s Using

Adobe Acrobat 9, InDesign CS4,

& QuarkXPress 8

Provided by:

Quad/Graphics Technology Group

July 2010

Disclaimer

Table of Contents

QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0

Caution About New Features In Acrobat 9.0

Software Requirements

QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0

About These Settings

General Tab Settings

Image Tab Settings*

QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0

Fonts Tab Settings

Color Tab Settings

Advanced Tab Settings

QWik Start Reference: Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0

Standards Tab Settings

Saving Your Job Options File

How to Use These Guidelines

Contacting Quad/Graphics about PDF

Acrobat’s Built-in Functionality, What’s Supported by What Version?

What to Know about PDF?

Do I need to Preflight my PDF?

What is a PDF/X file?

All PDFs are Created Equal, Right?

A Detailed Look at Adobe Acrobat Distiller 9.0 Settings

General Tab

Images Tab

Monochrome Images

Policy Radio Button

Fonts Tab

Color Tab

Advanced Tab

Standards Tab

Important Acrobat 9.0 Distiller Presettings

Preference Settings for a Macintosh Environment

Preference Settings for a Windows Environment

Font Handling

Open Type Fonts

MacOS X Font Management

Layout to PDF, via PostScript

Creating PostScript, for Later Distillation, from QuarkXPress 8

Using Adobe PDF 9 Virtual Printer

Creating PostScript, for Later Distillation, from Adobe InDesign CS4

Layout to PDF, via Direct Export

Direct Exporting PDF from QuarkXPress 8

XTension Prerequisites

Configuring Export PDF Default Preferences

Configuring Export PDF Style

Direct Exporting PDF from Adobe InDesign CS4

Adobe PDF Presets Window

General Tab Settings

Compression Tab Settings*

Marks and Bleeds Tab Settings

Output Tab Settings

Advanced Tab Settings

Summary Tab Settings

Appendix A: Overprints and PDF

✓

Overprint ✓

not set-up correctly or not supported!

Overprint ✓

Right

WARNING✗

Wrong

Configuring Acrobat’s Overprint Preview Option

Using Output Preview to Check Your Overprints

Transparency in PDF

A Printers Perspective & General Information

Transparency Design Considerations

Recommended Transparency Flattening Settings and Overview

Using InDesign CS4’s Transparency Flattener Preview Option

Configuring InDesign Transparency Flattener Presets…

Understanding the Various Highlight Options

Using Acrobat 9’s Transparency Flattener Preview Option

Appendix B