Unable to use Acrobat files later than version 6 w/TF 3.02

[btravis311]

I'm running Trueflow 3 v3.02. I know, I know, it's a fossil. Hey, upgrades aren't cheap!

Anyway, when we first installed it, we were using Acrobat Pro 6. When Acrobat 7 shipped, I upgraded and found that any PDF file which I opened, altered, and saved in Acrobat 7 would instantly abort at the RIP. I coudn't seem to come up with any way to "save it down" with Acro7Pro so that the TF RIP would handle it. So we've been using Acro6Pro ever since. I'm sure I'm missing out on some great stuff in Acrobat Pro 8 and now 9, but haven't really even tried to upgrade to those versions because we still have this older RIP software.

Anybody else deal with this?

Do the latest versions of Acrobat Pro let you "save down" a PDF in such a manner that my older RIP will accept it, possibly in a manner that Acrobat 6 Pro didn't. Keep in mind that I'm not expecting my RIP to handle live transparencies, because it won't. I just want to take advantage of the preflighting and other fancy-like options that the latest version of Acrobat have.

And we do have Pitstop, so if anybody is aware of a situation where the combination of Acrobat Pro 8 or 9 and Pitstop will allow me to upgrade and still save usable PDFs, that's what I'm interested in.

[PrePressTechie]

Have you tried to save your files as PDF Version 1.6 Compatible.. then rip it???

[Al Ferrari]

One way to use the older rip while preflighting with a newer Acrobat version is to do the preflight on a copy of the pdf and make the needed corrections in the application that generated the pdf.

Of course this is not ideal, but that's the costs of not keeping up. I feel for you, but it's only going to get worse.

Al

[btravis311]

Have you tried to save your files as PDF Version 1.6 Compatible.. then rip it???

I haven't tried to save to PDF v1.6. The PDF files for my TrueFlow RIP need to be PDF/X1a, which I believe is PDF version 1.3, right?