Flatten or Live Transparency Poll

[Gregg]

Hi, All.

I know this has been discussed here before, but this topic seems to be one that is always evolving. For example, I use vendors, who used to insist upon PDF 1.3, that now prefer PDF 1.6 or greater.

Certainly, I always contact a new vendor before I send off a PDF, but would be interested to hear what the majority is here.

Do you prefer to have PDFs supplied with Live Transparency or Flattened?

I think it would also be very helpful to get a brief reason why your prefer one to the other.

I know, from a publisher's standpoint, that this information would be beneficial.

[Hopkins Printing]

Hi Gregg,

We prefer live transparency because...

1. It eliminates potential color mapping issues later in the workflow.
2. It eliminates the need for customers to have Overprint Preview turned on in Acrobat to avoid the white box syndrome if they request a PDF proof of their PDF (which does happen).
3. The PDF is smaller.

Cheers,
Jon Morgan
Hopkins Printing

[almaink]

Live transparency please. Atomic regions can make trapping a real mess. Flattening can also introduce image problems and text to outlines issues.

[zoran]

Live transparency, please.
Now there is no reason to flatten and go through postscript since both major publishing applications can export live transparency (Quark introduced this in recent 8.1 update finally).
I imagine if your provider is stuck on old PS workflow, they might prefer flattened PDF.

[toronar]

Definately live transparency. Since Adobe's PDF Print Engine anything flattened is a hassle
Especially if you have to make changes to a PDF, having live transparency instead of a flattened version really helps. As I read on Adobe's forums lately: prepress is CSI: PDF.

Now there is no reason to flatten and go through postscript since both major publishing applications can export live transparency (Quark introduced this in recent 8.1 update finally).

Quark's live transparency is not real exported transparency; Quark just exports postscript with PDF marks emedded that tell the Jaws Engine to make things transparent. Quark can only export live transparency for it's own objects, not for placed files. E.g. if you place a PDF with live transparency in Quark, it will flatten this transparency before the export, although Quark's own objects stay with live transparency.

Just good to know if you plan on working with this and begin to wonder why placed PDFs get flattened when you export with live transparency

[Gregg]

Great feedback, everyone. Thanks!

[Joe]

Same here, live transparency, for the same reasons stated above.

[JHoltz]

Our RIPs/systems support PDFs with live transparency and several other printers that we use are now supporting Acrobat 5 (v1.4) and higher. Another major printer will only take flattened Acrobat 4 (v1.3) PDFs

This is a great clip: Stupid PDF Sydrome NOW - spread the word!
YouTube - Stop Stupid PDF Syndrome Now

Waiting for PDF/x-4 to become the new ISO standard:
Adobe Forums: What is PDF/x-4?

jh