Print a Flattened PDF

[salesserviceguy]

I am proposing a solution to a Hospital Print shop that involves creating Saddle stitch booklets using EFI Seequence software suite "Impose/ Compose" software on a current Fiery 8e controller from a Colour copier.

I want to export that file as a Flattened PDF to two 85 cpm Black only Non Fiery copiers with Saddle stitch Finishers operating in tandem. Do you think it will work?

I believe by definition a "flattened PDF" will ‘fuse’ active elements of the file like annotations and form fields into a single element of the PDF that can no longer be edited or manipulated.

[michaelejahn]

I am proposing a solution to a Hospital Print shop that involves creating Saddle stitch booklets using EFI Seequence software suite "Impose/ Compose" software on a current Fiery 8e controller from a Colour copier.

I want to export that file as a Flattened PDF to two 85 cpm Black only Non Fiery copiers with Saddle stitch Finishers operating in tandem. Do you think it will work?

you have two issues - one is "can I make a reliable PDF" and the other is "if i have the PDF file and if they are the correct height and width, can I use "Impose/ Compose" to paginate them into the right orientation and order.

I have no experience with this "Impose/ Compose" tool, our customer either buy our Compose Easy Book

EasyBook

Or the use PDFSnake or Quite Imposing

okay, back to the 'flattening' issue...

"flattened" is a term that is used many different ways, but in this case, since I am unsure what authoring application, i will suggest "save as PDF/X-1a" if the application supports that. However, some people have very very old RIPs - these people do crazy things like save the PDF pages to Greyscale TIFFs then open them back up as a PDF. Lets hope you do not need to do that !

I believe by definition a "flattened PDF" will ‘fuse’ active elements of the file like annotations and form fields into a single element of the PDF that can no longer be edited or manipulated.

Flattening normally does no mean that, as flattening is more related to 'we use Adobe products that had a transparency setting tool, and we do not have a RIP that we render these settings properly" - this is why people often try an 'flatten' by saving as PDF/X-1a - it does not always work well with things that have transparency effects and spot colors, so you may need to set some rules with the newsletter designer.

In Acrobat X Pro, you can open any "suspect" PDF and under the file menu, select Save as and cascade select "Optimize PDF" - there are all sorts of wonderful settings that will convert / simplify things for you.

Hope this helps

[salesserviceguy]

Lots to think about. Thx.

[deckm00@yahoo.com]

In Fiery Properties you can select Composite Overprint. From the manual:

"Select On to print a combination of
background and foreground colors where
objects overlap.
Select Off to hide the background object
where images overlap."

I've seen this solve the problem of unflattened layers from time to time however bear in mind it will increase your RIP time.