Does Quark actually have 1-up on InDesign?

[Gregg]

I know this topic has been discussed before, and I was hopeful CS6 might have included the ability to export separations to PDF. Quark 8 does it nicely, why can't InDesign?

The reason I need it:
When handling book reprints, I need to supply the printer TextPlate PDFs only - not composite.

With InDesign titles: Current workflow is to print .PS of TextPlate sep, Distill to PDF.

With Quark titles (backlist): Export TextPlate sep directly to PDF.

Clearly, the Quark titles take less time.

What gives?!?!

[Stephen Marsh]

Most people have moved on to composite PDF workflows, away from pre-separated .ps/.pdf files. However as you rightly mention, there are still requirements for separated files.

This does not directly answer the question, however it started me thinking on a tangent. Acrobat Pro has a preflight that can break up a PDF into layers (text, vectors, rasters etc). One can then hide all layers except the text layer. Then there is a second preflight that can remove hidden layers and flatten the remaining layers. The final PDF is still composite, not separated and it only contains text, not black vectors or black image plate elements etc...so this is probably not practical.

Stephen Marsh

[Al Ferrari]

Most people have moved on to composite PDF workflows, away from pre-separated .ps/.pdf files. However as you rightly mention, there are still requirements for separated files.

This does not directly answer the question, however it started me thinking on a tangent. Acrobat Pro has a preflight that can break up a PDF into layers (text, vectors, rasters etc). One can then hide all layers except the text layer. Then there is a second preflight that can remove hidden layers and flatten the remaining layers. The final PDF is still composite, not separated and it only contains text, not black vectors or black image plate elements etc...so this is probably not practical.

Stephen Marsh

Which version of Acrobat, and which preflight? How do you hide some of the layers after the preflight using only Acrobat?

Al

[Stephen Marsh]

Which version of Acrobat, and which preflight? How do you hide some of the layers after the preflight using only Acrobat?

Al

Hi Al, that was with Acrobat Pro 9, using a single fixup found under the layers category "create different layers for vector, text, image". Another similar fixup is "put text objects on text layer".

One then hides the vector and image layers using the layers palette/panel (turn off the eye visibility icon).

Then one runs the single fixup under layers for "discard hidden layer content and flatten visible layers".

All of this would be faster than printing to separations and distilling, however I don't think that it would be the best option for Gregg's original post.


Stephen Marsh

[Hopkins Printing]

As far as I know, InDesign cannot directly export a pre-separated PDF. There might be a 3rd party plugin out there somewhere that might make this possible. If you have a full version of Acrobat, you could PRINT your InDesign file to the AdobePDF printer that comes with Acrobat and set your InDeisgn print settings to separate the colors.

Just a thought,
hp

[Gregg]

Thanks for the feedback. I understand there are workarounds to my issue, I'm more curious to why InDesign has never had this functionality. Again, just surprised Quark has a feature that I prefer over InDesign (granted, it's the only one).

[Greg_Firestone]

Thanks for the feedback. I understand there are workarounds to my issue, I'm more curious to why InDesign has never had this functionality. Again, just surprised Quark has a feature that I prefer over InDesign (granted, it's the only one).

Quark has had it from legacy workflow days. I'm trying to remember - has InDesign ever had it? If not, maybe they saw the writing on the wall regarding separated workflow. As it is, InDesign was really the first to push PDF as an output format (when compared to Quark). For PDF, you didn't need composite (as Stephen mentioned).

Greg

[Stephen Marsh]

Thanks for the feedback. I understand there are workarounds to my issue, I'm more curious to why InDesign has never had this functionality. Again, just surprised Quark has a feature that I prefer over InDesign (granted, it's the only one).

Most printers would have prepress Workflow software. For example, Kodak Prinergy probably has market share in most commercial offset printers and in Prinergy it is very easy to only output the K plate from a composite colour input file (either to a new PDF or direct to a CTP). Pre-separated is mostly legacy and outdated by advances in modern and or high end software. InDesign has the ability to export composite files, which are the generally preferred format for most users and workflows. InDesign still has the ability to create separated output if it is desired, however as this is a deprecated feature for PDF files it is my guess that there has never been a great incentive for Adobe to do this via export.

Some "modern" software or workflows are still geared toward separated input and PostScript - however the current trend is to use composite PDF and APPE RIPs over PostScript and CPSI RIPs. I used to like the "security" of pre-separated files for unknown downstream providers, as I have had bad experiences with some supplier's systems and composite files. We used an embellishing company to produce foil debossing blocks and printing - they wanted a pre-separated file that only contained the foil stamp elements.

Gregg, for the book reprint, why can't you just supply a composite 4C PDF with the understanding that the printer will only be using the K separation?


Stephen Marsh

[halmac]

Thanks for the feedback. I understand there are workarounds to my issue, I'm more curious to why InDesign has never had this functionality. Again, just surprised Quark has a feature that I prefer over InDesign (granted, it's the only one).

I use both and there are at least a dozen!!! Especially if you do a lot of typesetting!

[Al Ferrari]

Can you digress a little further and at least mention a few of them?

Al