Adobe Work Flow

[David Milisock]

We stopped supporting the MAC about 4 years ago and 2 years ago completely stopped supporting native Adobe files. So as the saying goes no good deed goes unpunished last week I took a MAC InDesign CC 2015 file from a design firm for a next to free job for an non-profit. I took the file to a friend I know who runs a prepress department for a large marketing company that outputs their own work. Since I write quite a few articles I wanted a pro to handle the file so I could see just how far the Adobe work flow has come so I could write about it. The file (was I believe they call it packaged for distribution), when opened it took 8 minutes to get a file in which we had to substitute fonts for. While we had all the fonts his ID refused to recognize several of them and some of the layered tif files could not be opened in Photoshop for editing. Lucky for me Corel Photo-PAINT could open the tif files. As far as I can see the opening of Adobe InDesignCC 2015 files is the same old BS that we had years ago. So my question is this do you guys have to work like this all the time?

 

[zoran]

I wanted to reply only "Yep!" but forum would not take post that is shorter than 10 characters.
Fonts are hit and miss, you can use Font Management app or my best workaround is to use Indesign application font folder, usually fonts work ok when placed there.
Layered Tiff files could be corruption or something but pretty much over the years Indesign accumulated a lot's of staff and new features, they are overdue for optimization for sure.

 

[David Milisock]

I wanted to reply only "Yep!" but forum would not take post that is shorter than 10 characters.
Fonts are hit and miss, you can use Font Management app or my best workaround is to use Indesign application font folder, usually fonts work ok when placed there.
Layered Tiff files could be corruption or something but pretty much over the years Indesign accumulated a lot's of staff and new features, they are overdue for optimization for sure.

W​ow, how do you make money like that? I do a lot of grand format, signs, vehicles and some print, mainly under 16 pages and if my files were like this I'd go broke. I thought Adobe would have gotten it right or at least much closer by now. CorelDraw X7 embeds the font in the file and uses a font manager that can automatically load the font. I don't know about the layered tif, Photo-PAINT X7 and Paintshop Pro X8 opened them with no issues.

 

[zoran]

I can not comment on that particular job since I don't have hands on it, but if I did, I am sure I would be able to troubleshoot and figure out what is wrong.
Not every Indesign job is a problem, it depends who started it and how good designer is who created document in the first place.
We make money because approx. 60-70% of jobs come in PDF format, which in itself carries it's own share of issues but we have tools for that. All in all in 2015 based on what I still see, despite all the advances in computing and software I still see the same issues with files that were there 18 years ago. It all starts with designer and more tools and power you give them, you should educate them more, which so far has not worked in my experience.
In my opinion responsibility lies with software maker, they should not consider that every person who uses their software is educated designer and should dumb down interface and automate it to the point of wizard and step by step process, which would prevent uneducated designers from making poor decisions and mistakes. There should be "advanced" UI for educated designers but that is becoming moot point in this digital age of cross media and internet/paper publishing, everything is getting just too complex (or I am getting too old)

 

[Joe]

The software is never an issue. A bad designer can make lousy files in InDesign and a good designer can make great files in Microsoft Publisher. The biggest issue I see with fonts are people using old fonts from the 1980's or 90's. If they use modern OpenType fonts I don't see many problems. Another font issue is they are using web fonts which do not contain a license for outlining or embedding the font. And many "freeware" fonts have the same problems. I can't say what your issue is with tiff files as I've never had Photoshop or InDesign have a problem with them.

 

[David Milisock]

Zoran I'm with you, I'm older and the issues I see are the same since 1985. This is why we stopped supporting native files for all but a couple clients, I use PDF and Pitstop Pro for most files, the real issue for use is that Adobe creates PDF files and then Illustrator PDF files which are not PDF files. CorelDraw uses a font manager and automatically loads the fonts as you open the file, it also embeds fonts for viewing, if Corel can move the process forward one would think Adobe could. do the same. Most of my engineer and interior design clients use CorelDraw and it's much faster and profitable for us. I just came back from a show and we have just bought a Mimaki and tech support does not recommend using a MAC at all for the device, they said it can be done but their question was why?

 

[David Milisock]

Joe I didn't bother trying to figure out what was wrong with the tiff files we tried every version of PS from CS 5 forward with no luck when they popped open in Corel Photo-PAINT and looked like what was placed in the ID document I ran with it. I did try Paintshop Pro X8 later and it worked there too. Who knows!

 

[prepressdork]

David, you obviously have a nitch market that predominantly uses Corel which I think is awesome however a fair percentage of the rest of the print market uses Adobe apps and commercial printers like me must support/use what our customers use (I personally have not received a Corel file in at least 5 years) so while we as printers might enjoy indulging in a little fun and lighthearted application mud slinging, it all comes back to the customer and what they use...period.

As for the font issues you mentioned, it is entirely possible that it has nothing to do with Adobe. It's possible that the fonts that are trying to be used may already be installed somewhere and let's not forget that even with a font management program like Suitcase, some of how it functions is still dictated by Font Book and/or the OS.

I cannot specifically speak to the layered TIFF image issue you mentioned however I think I have had one occurrence in the last year where an image could not be opened by PS. It happens...

pd

 

[dabob]

Here's my 2 cents on this . . . .

We get somewhere over 50-60% of our files in native adobe files either Illy or InDesign . .. 90% are open and print no problems . . . of the remaining 10% most of the problems come from the customer "really" proofreading the job, apparently for the 1st time and making corrections to the file they submitted and wanting us to do the "Final" corrections . . .

Also just to note the type of files I'm talking about - we just got in an 88 page (mixed 2/c and 4c + spot pages) + 5/4 cover football program . . . 363 linked files, 15 different fonts and boat load of colors from the supplied ads (everything from AI, PDF's from publisher, word, and who knows what else . . . It was an open and print - a couple of font issues - (these were problems with the font the customer supplied - Lord knows where he got them from) so I am thinking not and Adobes issue.

David, you say that nothing has changed since 1985 . . well thats not quite the case . . . one big one that stands out is the ink manager . .. we no longer have to make sure the 185 spot color call outs are correct in the native files - we can remap "red", "185CV", "185 CVC", "185", "bright red" all to the same spot color plate or we can determine which colors covert to process - you can tell some to and others not to - this alone saves me hours if not days of fixing color issues between native file color issues.

And to echo prepressdorks sediments . .. I haven't seen more than a couple of files generated from Corel in the last five years and only a few more than that from Quark . . . so IMHO if you've got a dog in this show (conventional printing) you are going to have to deal with the Adobe workflow - and it is one heck of a lot better than it was in the late 80's and early 90's . . . . .

 

[wonderings]

The software is never an issue. A bad designer can make lousy files in InDesign and a good designer can make great files in Microsoft Publisher. The biggest issue I see with fonts are people using old fonts from the 1980's or 90's. If they use modern OpenType fonts I don't see many problems. Another font issue is they are using web fonts which do not contain a license for outlining or embedding the font. And many "freeware" fonts have the same problems. I can't say what your issue is with tiff files as I've never had Photoshop or InDesign have a problem with them.

All our font issues are with old fonts. TTF and OTF fonts never give me an issues, nor do the free fronts from websites like dafont.com. The biggest and most common problem is getting pdf files without bleed. Usually an easy fix. Every now and then you get something wonky in a file, but I would say most of the problems are created by the designer. Have had issues when getting packaged indesign files, some print items put in non printing layers, or even marked as "nonprinting". Thankfully we do not get many native working files anymore, most of it is pdf and most of it is good to go when we get it. No where near the headaches we used to have with Quark files and corel files. I like the adobe workflow, hate the monthly fees.

 

[David Milisock]

prepressdork, our clients use all the applications but in general it's low page counts, 1 page to 16 pages. We (as stated before) refuse native files from all but a few clients. The Corel clients I have I built from experience over the years, which in many cases even they send PDF files for output. I agree with the font issues but it's still as bad as it was in 1985, Corel made this 97% more efficient Adobe has to be able to do as well. I also agree with using OTF true typ outlines.

 

[David Milisock]

dabob, certainly if we had large page counts InDesign would be a choice but in reality I cannot afford for it to take 8 minutes to resolve link and font issues on a $500 - 8 1/2 x 11 - 4/4 brochure. The file I was referring to was just a brochure, after 8 minutes we got something open that worked however it was not perfect and the client considered the fix our problem not theirs. How can I make a profit if on a $500 job when if every thing works perfectly there's only $100 profit in the finished product when I wasted 8 minutes up front. As I said before opening a current ID file is very much like an old PageMaker or Quark file, time consuming and profit sucking. If Adobe wants to handle fonts like this so be it. Colors I can see being better but they need to resolve the links and font issues, as I said before if Corel can give a user a font loader Adobe should be able to.

 

[David Milisock]

wonderings I bet the old CorelDraw files were (shall we say) interesting with the application based color management and poor EPS filters, (if I think about it I bet I can find 20 non starter issues until X4 came along). Quark was always a mess as was PageMaker but from my perspective I don't see much difference from old CS InDesign files and new CC InDesign files. Still need links, clients still screw up links, in my case fonts that were picked up by ID when packaged were not recognized when we opened the packaged file. System fonts ignored all from a MAC file opened on a MAC system, not good.

 

[wonderings]

dabob, certainly if we had large page counts InDesign would be a choice but in reality I cannot afford for it to take 8 minutes to resolve link and font issues on a $500 - 8 1/2 x 11 - 4/4 brochure. The file I was referring to was just a brochure, after 8 minutes we got something open that worked however it was not perfect and the client considered the fix our problem not theirs. How can I make a profit if on a $500 job when if every thing works perfectly there's only $100 profit in the finished product when I wasted 8 minutes up front. As I said before opening a current ID file is very much line an old PageMaker or Quark file, time consuming and profit sucking. If Adobe wants to handle fonts like this so be it. Colors I can see being better but they need to resolve the links and font issues, as I said before if Corel can give a user a font loader Adobe should be able to.

If a job is packaged correctly, links should not be an issue. Worst case you relink to the "links" folder in the packaged folder and the rest should resolve itself if they are all there and packaged correctly. The fonts can be an issue, Adobe did make some improvements with "document fonts" folder in a packaged file. Indesign is supposed to see those fonts without need to activate them in a font management program. Only times I have issues with this is with older fonts. Never had an issue with otf or ttf fonts in packaged indesign files, makes things simple with no activation, same with links.

 

[dabob]

dabob, certainly if we had large page counts InDesign would be a choice but in reality I cannot afford for it to take 8 minutes to resolve link and font issues on a $500 - 8 1/2 x 11 - 4/4 brochure. The file I was referring to was just a brochure, after 8 minutes we got something open that worked however it was not perfect and the client considered the fix our problem not theirs. How can I make a profit if on a $500 job when if every thing works perfectly there's only $100 profit in the finished product when I wasted 8 minutes up front. As I said before opening a current ID file is very much like an old PageMaker or Quark file, time consuming and profit sucking. If Adobe wants to handle fonts like this so be it. Colors I can see being better but they need to resolve the links and font issues, as I said before if Corel can give a user a font loader Adobe should be able to.

David . . . I was just using the 88 page book as an example of how easy InDesign makes things . . . we use it for Bus Cards, Envelopes, L.H., Flyers, you name it its my weapon of choice for every layout job . .. I think back to the day when I told customers . . . Photoshop is for photos . . Illustrator/Fhand is for illustrating, and Pagemaker/Quark/InDesign is for page layout . . .I've used Corel . .. in the 90's and found it to be very buggy but compared to the rest of the flock not that much worse at that time . . .

and if you spend less than 8 minutes a file on average . . . thats pretty damn good . . . my average is 5 - 7 minutes for an open and print . . .

 

[David Milisock]

wonderling it didn't work for me like that and I wasn't the technician a user with many years of experience tried this file I'll have to wait and try another one.

 

[David Milisock]

dabob I can't even imagine using InDesign for anything but long documents, I mean like linking files? It makes sense if you've got a long document with 50 or 100 images but not for much any thing else. An example of the types of jobs I do would be a 15 page 18" x 36" CorelDraw file with an image or two on each page at 200 to 300 PPI in it and a column or two of text, some transparent drop shadows. Color modes usually are Adobe RGB, GRACOL CMYK, 15% dot gain grayscale, possibly a spot color (usually I convert the spot color to Adobe RGB VIA LAB in the application) using a native color PDF file to a RIP driven ink Jet. Proofing is handled via a low res (72ppi)PDF. I resample the images to the resolution required for output during the publish to PDF and drop and run. A file like this opens in about 1 minute 30 seconds depending on network traffic and if one of my students has created it will publish to PDF in 1 or two minutes. I split the file in half to make the RIPPING process take less time, you still have 2 -1 gb compressed files. Boards are mounted to 1/2" gator with melamine edging and a lustre laminate, billable is $3,500 and margins are 40 to 50% net. Total man hours 2.5 for mounting and laminating, RIP and print time 1 hour. All received and processed in CorelDraw Graphics Suite, including the publish to PDF, Rasterlink or Versaworks RIPs. We do a lot of files 30 feet or more native in CD, output mostly as TIF files to grand format devices. 99% of all print work I do is CorelDraw or Adobe work taken into CorelDraw for repair and sent to prinergy via PDF.

 

[dabob]

David . . . I couldn't live without "linked" files . . currently I have about 1.3 tb of working files and use the same images in most of them . . . if I embedded them I would need to have about, and I'm guessing here maybe 18-20 TB of online storage - I rarely have issues with links and when I do they are solved in minutes - to be honest I have no problems with the entire Adobe line of products provided they are used correctly . . . you don't do a book in Illustrator, you don't make a business card in Photoshop, etc. . . . but then we are not a grand format shop and from what I understand the machines that do that kinda work are more partial to Windows boxes and Corel . . . different industries . . . different tools . .

if you want send me that file and I'll take a look at it . . .

 

[David Milisock]

dabob in your line of work I could not imagine anything except a long document application like ID, my files can be 1.5 GB easily to 3 GB but they're not complex as in pages, the need for trapping or imposition. BTW those tif files are out of my mind already as soon as I get it open the questions are over I don't make money resolving Adobe or other application issues. My work flow is what pushed me to CorelDraw, very little long documents, about 15% print and the rest large format and even larger signs. A perfect fit for CorelDraw as it does the print press work fine just awful at long documents and a 150' x 150' work space means no scaling. BTW I was super surprised we were at NBM in Philadelphia picked up a new Mimaki and the no MAC support thing was weird. We can hot folder it but aspects of this world must be changing faster than I thought.