Adobe Illustrator, PDFs, and Snow Leopard

[Galrun7]

Hi all,
Had a question on trying to get a PDF with simulated overprint. We have many customers who require PDFs for minor changes. We are a flexo printer and usually set up our files with our white plate (traps as well) overprinting on top of all layers. In Leopard I was able to print to PDF while simulating overprint, but in Snow Leopard Adobe decided it would be more fun to add a dialogue box that doesn't work.

I wanted to see if anyone has any suggestions on how to achieve this. Reason being, most of our customers want to print out a section to go over it, others don't understand the overprint preview in Acrobat Reader. We also are running Esko here, but I'm not sure if they have any tickets/solutions to do this.

Thanks in advance.

[WharfRat]

Can you not you tell your workflow
to act normally when creating the RIP file
but
ignore overprints
when creating the "PROOF" pdf

MSD

[leonardr]

Had a question on trying to get a PDF with simulated overprint. We have many customers who require PDFs for minor changes. We are a flexo printer and usually set up our files with our white plate (traps as well) overprinting on top of all layers. In Leopard I was able to print to PDF while simulating overprint, but in Snow Leopard Adobe decided it would be more fun to add a dialogue box that doesn't work.

Adobe was forced to remove the Adobe PDF Printer due to security changes introduced in Snow Leopard.

However, printing to PDF from Illustrator has always been a NOT RECOMMENDED procedure. File->Save As is the correct way to produce PDF from Illustrator.

I wanted to see if anyone has any suggestions on how to achieve this. Reason being, most of our customers want to print out a section to go over it, others don't understand the overprint preview in Acrobat Reader. We also are running Esko here, but I'm not sure if they have any tickets/solutions to do this..

If you create PDF/X files, then Adobe Acrobat/Reader 9 will always display Overprints correctly. Use the proper international standards and things will work as expected.

[Galrun7]

I did see the PDF/X file trick which allows customers (also our internal people) to see the PDF correctly. The only problem remains is when people go to print the PDF, the white overprinting layer ends up printing on top of everything, essentially blocking out the artwork.

Yes, I am aware that printing to PDF is the incorrect way to handle PDFs, but we only use the PDFs for customers to look at changes as well as for our customer service to print out "Snapshots" of the job. In a way it was pretty much "idiot-proofing" the display of the art and printing of our internal sheets with the artwork placed. I did not see a simulate overprint print in Acrobat Reader, only in Acrobat Pro.

Any other suggestions, I appreciate the help.

[leonardr]

I did see the PDF/X file trick which allows customers (also our internal people) to see the PDF correctly. The only problem remains is when people go to print the PDF, the white overprinting layer ends up printing on top of everything, essentially blocking out the artwork.

Use the "Flatten Overprint" fixup in Acrobat Professional 9's Preflight component to turn overprinting into something that will always print...