PDF-Workflow / Creation the Author, Stephan Jaeggi, Is a Well- Heard About PDF and »Carousel« (The Arts Companies (Now VISCOM), a Posi- Known PDF Expert in Europe
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C 01 Creation – Contents Table of Contents . C01 Acrobat Distiller . C17 About the Author . C02 Job Options . C18 Editorial . C03 General . C19 Why PDF? . C04 Compression . C20 Workflow . C05 Downsampling . C21 How to generate a PDF File . C06 Fonts . C22 Correct Layout Files . C07 Font Substitution . C23 PDFWriter or Distiller? . C08 Font Folders . C24 “Acrobat Distiller“ PPD . C09 Color . C25 Mac Printer Drivers . C10 Advanced Menu . C26 Windows Printer Drivers . C11 Watched Folders . C27 PS Resolution . C12 Golden Rules . C28 Quark XPress 4.0 . C13 Instruction for use . C29 PageMaker . C14 Imprint . US2 Microsoft Word . C15 Trademarks . US3 Use of OPI Images . C16 Addresses . US4 digital PDF-Workflow / Creation The author, Stephan Jaeggi, is a well- heard about PDF and »Carousel« (the Arts Companies (now VISCOM), a posi- known PDF expert in Europe. He has al- code name for »Acrobat«) at the Seybold tion that enabled him to assist the 1200 ready introduced thousands of profes- conference. member companies with the introduc- sionals to the secrets of PDF in over one Shortly after, he set up his own busi- tion of PostScript and DTP technologies. hundred seminars and numerous lectures. ness and founded the company PrePress- Consulting, based in Binningen near Basel C in Switzerland. During its early years, the 02 About the Author company offered a wide range of con- sultancy and support services for prepress He also receives regular invitations to the companies and printshops. Since 1996, Seybold conferences in the USA to speak PrePress-Consulting has been concen- on the subject of PDF. Stephan Jaeggi is trating exclusively on PDF. co-author of the white paper »PDF for After leaving college in 1978, Stephan prepress« presented in New York in March Jaeggi did a practical course in a print- 1998. shop and went on to study at the Swiss This white paper and a great deal more School of Engineering for Printing and information about PDF can be found on Packaging. He graduated with an Stephan Jaeggi's web server (Internet HTL/ESIG qualification in print engi- address as below). neering. The German-language newsletter He then worked as a systems manag- »PDF-Aktuell« is also published on this er in a large print shop, where he was server, and provides a summary of the lat- responsible for the evaluation, installa- est news on PDF. Everybody can subscribe tion and operation of a large mainframe to this newsletter free of charge at typesetting system (using HELL Digiset www.prepress.ch/pdf-aktuell.html. imagesetters). Our author has been working on PDF He was then appointed Secretary for technology since 1991, when he first IT at the Swiss Association of Graphic Stephan Jaeggi has been an enthusiastic advocate of PDF technology for Further information on PDF and the »PDF-Aktuell« some years. He is also newsletter is available at http://www.prepress.ch well-known as an informed critic of vendors. To coincide with the introduction of their address). The digital versions contain a Particular thanks go to my friend, new PDF workflow system »Prinergy« number of hypertext links that lead to Bernd Zipper, who has provided great Heidelberg and Creo have asked me to related topics in the other brochures. support to me on this project. write on the subject of PDF workflows in Each page deals with a separate topic, I hope you will enjoy reading these the printing industry for their new range making it easy for the user to read indi- brochures, and that PDF will be a success vidual pages and locate a particular topic for you. C at any time. 03 Editorial My aim in writing these brochures was to provide practical guidance for the use of specialist material, »vision+work«. of PDF in the print production process. Binningen, Switzerland The result is a series of four brochures The brochures are not intended to replace August 1999 directed at different target groups: technical manuals, but rather to explain • Basics: An introduction to PDF tech- the concept of PDF technology, share my nology – intended for all readers. practical experience, and give tips to the • Management: Economic and organi- reader. zational aspects of PDF – for managers. These publications describe the manual • Creation: The creation of PDF docu- PDF workflow using »Adobe Acrobat« Stephan Jaeggi ments – for data suppliers (advertis- and standard plug-ins. They also describe ing agencies, graphic artists, cus- the new potential offered by automatic tomers). PDF workflow systems such as »Prinergy«. • Production: Processing and outputting I would like to thank Heidelberg and PDF files – for prepress technicians. Creo for giving me the opportunity to publish these brochures. The »Basics« brochure is available in For a long time, I have wanted to take printed form. All four publications are the knowledge that I share in my semi- available in digital form on CD-ROM and nars and lectures and write it down to on the Internet (see below for Internet make it available to a broader audience. All four brochures can be downloaded as PDF documents from the Internet at http://www.visionwork.net These days, most print originals are pas- sed on to prepress service providers and printshops in the form of files from lay- out applications (e.g. »QuarkXPress«, »Adobe PageMaker«), graphics programs C 04 Why PDF? (e.g. »Adobe Illustrator«, »Macromedia FreeHand«, »Corel Draw«) or even word processing applications (such as »Micro- soft Word«). This is often a risky business. Problems ginally developed for office communica- exchange between different companies can include missing illustrations or fonts tions – now incorporates all the infor- in prepress production a simple and reli- and incompatibility between different mation required for high-quality imaging. able process [Basics B07]. program versions [Management M05]. Nowadays, PDF files are usually crea- The page creator as well as the pre- Some users choose to transfer PostScript ted with the »Adobe Acrobat« software press operator can benefit from PDF. As files, but this is also not problem-free. package. The »Distiller« is used to con- film has done in the past, PDF now defi- PostScript data can contain device-speci- vert PostScript print files into PDF files nes a clear interface between creation fic commands that make output impos- [Creation C17] that can then be pro- and production. sible. Moreover, PostScript files are usu- cessed using the »Acrobat« program ally very large and thus difficult to [Production P12]. There is also the free transfer. »Acrobat Reader« that allows PDF docu- The »Portable Document Format« (PDF) ments to be viewed and printed on four- provides an alternative. From Version 1.3 teen different computer platforms. The onwards, this data format – that was ori- features of PDF format make data Page creators and prepress operators can benefit from PDF. The pages are created as usual using any The most reliable method – that works setter. After a preflight check [Production layout, graphics or word processing appli- with all programs capable of outputting P10], the pages are trapped if necessary cation. A PDF file is then generated. PostScript – is to use »Acrobat Distiller« and then imposed into signatures. There are several ways of doing this. to convert the PostScript data into PDF [Production P22] documents. This method is described in These steps can either be performed detail in this brochure. manually using individual programs, or C It is inadvisable to use »PDFWriter«, using a PDF workflow system such as 05 Workflow since the results after subsequent ima- »Prinergy« from Heidelberg and Creo ging are usually unsatisfactory. [Basics B14] to automate production. Some programs have a direct PDF [Creation C08] export function, but not all are based on Once generated, the PDF document is the Adobe »PDF Library«, and they do checked visually and then sent to the not always generate PDF Version 1.3. printshop. There, the PDF data is prepared [Production P04] for output on a imagesetter or plate- Instead of the application files used in the past, part- ners in the PDF workflow PDF is the ideal interface between page now exchange PDF files. creation and the printshop. This is faster and more reliable. The most commonly used method of up with the correct PPD file (2). Next, the bat« program (5). The PDF document is generating a PDF file today is using Dis- pages are “printed“ to a PostScript file now ready to be passed on to a prepress tiller. [Creation C17] (3). The PostScript file is then converted company or a printshop (6). First, the pages are created in any appli- into a PDF file using »Acrobat Distiller« The data volume can be greatly com- cation (1). Then the printer driver is set (4), and finally checked using the »Acro- pressed in Distiller [Management M13], which means that it is normally possible C to transfer the file via ISDN or over the 06 How to generate a PDF File Internet. PS Create pages in Configure Post- Generate Post- Convert into Checking PDF Pass on any layout or Script printer Script file with PDF file using file in Acrobat PDF file graphic applica- driver with the embedded fonts »Distiller« [Production P08]. [Management tion “Acrobat Distil- [Creation C10]. [Creation C17]. M14]. ler“ PPD file [Creation123456 C07]. [Creation C09]. By performing these six It's easy to generate PDF documents steps a PDF file can be cre- ated out of any application when you know how. that supports PostScript. A correct layout file is an important factor behind a success- ful PDF workflow. Although many errors that have commonly occurred in the past can be avoided or eliminated with PDF, it Check list is not a miracle-worker. If the layout file has been created incor- rectly or contains non-printable elements (e.g.