Acrobat 8 and Printing

[kaiserwilhelm]

I am hoping this is in the correct forum. If not, please move.
I have a Konica 550 with a Fiery Rip. I see that EFI will be announcing Adobe Pdf Print Engine for their Fiery Rips.
The question is this.
Does anyone know of a 3rd party software, or possibly just a bit of education concerning Acrobat 8 that will alleviate this issue.
It seems to me that I will be "printing" out of Acrobat as an APPE. Then, the Fiery grabs it.
Doesn't Acrobat printing flatten on the fly? Thus, getting rid of the whole idea that I was trying for?
I am also going to cross post this in Color Management land.
(If I am ignorant on any of this, please bare with me).

 

[rich apollo]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

I don't anything about the Konica/Fiery, but with the PDF Print Engine you should be able to submit a PDF directly to the RIP.

rich

 

[Mark Stegman]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

I haven't had any trouble sending PDF files to the Fiery (or any other contemporary RIP) out of Acrobat 8 except for unexpected results when the right options aren't chosen. For example, if you don't have Overprint Preview ON in Acrobat and you don't check "Simulate Overprint" in the Advanced options of the Acrobat dialogue expect something different from what you see on screen.

As far rasterization goes I would set that to the highest level in the Transparency Flattener to take full advantage of the output device's resolution. In other words, let the RIP do it. You can rasterize the file in Acrobat using the Flattener Preview to see what will happen as far as colour and image quality goes (Advanced - Print Production - Flattener Preview). However, my understanding ( which is a little fuzzy on this) is that when the objects are rasterized the colour is based on the document profile. If you leave the rasterization to the RIP and choose a different profile expect the unexpected.

mark

 

[kaiserwilhelm]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

I agree with what you wrote. However, here is how APPE was been "sold" to me.
I produce a 1.8 pdf (unflattened). It goes into my RIP unflattened. Remains in my
rip unflattened.
I come back out as a "ripped" unflattened PDF. (In fact, that part has been tested
and is truthful).
Now, I am setting on a great PDF.
So, I need to print it.
If I go into Acrobat it WILL flatten on the way out.
Fiery has announced that they will have APPE supported after Drupa.
So, with that statement, I would then have an unflattened PDF and a device
(Konica with Fiery) that can handle an unflattened pdf.
Hence the issue.
Acrobat makes me print. When I print it flattens.
Yes, my rip will allow some sort of direct to the APPE of the Konica. The question
is more of to Adobe.
"Adobe - you created APPE. When will you allow Acrobat to print without flattening"?

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

(1) There is no such thing as PDF 1.8. The most recent Adobe PDF version is PDF 1.7.

(2) "Printing" from Acrobat is a process by which you convert PDF to some other page description language such as PostScript, PCL, or raster via a printer driver. What you want to do is to send a PDF file to a direct PDF-consuming printer. Consult your printer vendor for the solution they provide for such PDF job submission software.

- Dov

 

[kaiserwilhelm]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

Thanks.
BTW, Adobe made Acrobat 8 with PDF 1.7 - not me.
Confusing to say the least.

 

[rich apollo]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

That's the thing, kaiser, you won't print. It'll be more of a drag and drop. Place the PDF somewhere where it can be seen by the Fiery. From the Fiery select the file and tell the RIP to output a proof. That's how the RIPs that I've worked with have operated.

rich

 

[GordoMac]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

Fiery based RIP's have CommandWorkstation that you can import PDF files (or any other kind of prostscript file) directly into the RIP. They also have Hot Folder Utilities that you can drop files onto and have them automatically print. The issue with Acrobat 8.x printing with Fiery based RIPs is that they can potentially have PS code that the Fiery will choke on. Some files will print and some do not. The files that do not more than likely used a unique feature in CS3 that kicks in the higher end code. Since the PDF standard has gone open source and Acrobat 8 introduces a new PDF standard (v1.7) that supports Native Transparency (Acrobat 6 and 7 do as well) but in 8 is alot more convoluted, the Fiery has trouble rendering the Native code. The Fiery is not a PDFx 1a/b compliant machine. Splash, Creo and FreeFlow are. The engine they will release will ensure the PDF is a Fiery Friendly PDF. I am not an engineer but I support these RIPs and the bulk of my calls these days are Acrobat 8.x files created using a CS3 app and transparency. Print as Image always works when you're in a pinch but ideally, you want to export as Press Quality PDF (Acrobat 5.x) which will preserve the look but do the flattening for you.

Hope this helps in understanding why.

 

[leonardr]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

So many errors to correct - so little time...

* PDF didn't go "open source" - file format descriptions aren't source code that can go "open". What you mean to say is that PDF 1.7 has been adopted as an ISO Standard, thus no longer controlled by Adobe.

* PDF has supported transparency since 1.4 (Acrobat 5), and it is UNCHANGED since that version! There is nothing new concerning rendering in PDF 1.7.

* Acrobat 8.x, however, does use a newer printing solution than earlier versions of Acrobat in order to standardized printing across all Adobe applications. We believe that all major issues were addressed in the 8.1.x updates - please make sure that you are current.

* If you print from Acrobat to a Postscript device, it will flatten any transparency - the RIP will never see it! So that's NOT what is impacting your RIP.

* Fiery _IS_ a PDF/X-1a compliant RIP.

* There is no such thing as PDF/X-1b.

* Acrobat Professional has a wonderful Preflight feature that can be used to convert an arbitrary PDF to PDF/X-1a, including flattening transparency, color correction (if necessary), etc. How about using that?!?!

Leonard Rosenthol
PDF Standards Evangelist
Adobe Systems

 

[kaiserwilhelm]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

I guess my ultimate question is this:

Will Acrobat be incorporating a way to "print" unflattened pdfs to printers, etc?
If I come out of ID3 as 1.7 and stay 1.7 all the way then I end up with an unflattened pdf.
Can we all agree on that?
Where do I want to view it? Of course I want to view it in Acrobat 8.1
Now, the problem. I want to print it. Natural, don't you think?
I have to go back to my rip and "send" it to a hot folder, etc.

I am simply asking if the Adobe responders on this site think we might be seeing a solution where
Acrobat 8 (or 9.xx) would allow a "print" out of it without flattening or going postscript?
Thank you

 

[leonardr]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

Acrobat 9 is "Adobe PDF Print Engine aware" - such that if it detects that you are printing to an APPE-based device, it is able to send the native PDF data, as you would expect.

Leonard

 

[kaiserwilhelm]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

Amen. What I needed to hear.
Assuming Fall 08?

 

[Guest]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

http://www.getcs3.com/acrobat.php

 

[bluskool]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

Shouldn't this be Acrobat 8.2? Instead of an upgrade, we get to pay $159. I am guessing the only things relevant to print production in Acrobat 9 are "improved" (which should say fixed) print production tools. Adobe is basically saying to print people, "hey, you want those features you paid for in Acrobat 8 to work properly, buy them again. As an added bonus, we've added a bunch of features that don't mean sh?t to you."

 

[leonardr]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

I think you will be quite amazed at the amount of "print production" features in Acrobat 9! We've really focused on many of the needs and issues facing print production professionals and added many new features - as well as improving existing ones. Beta testers have said that it's the best version for print folks in YEARS!

I'm trying to blog on various of these new features at <http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/leonardr> and Taz Tally has a great article on the improved Output Preview and Color Conversion at <http://www.layersmagazine.com/acrobat-9-output-preview-and-color-conversion.html>.

Leonard

 

[bluskool]

Re: Acrobat 8 and Printing

I am sure it is great, but I guess this means that we are never going to get fixes for Acrobat 8 (If you are wondering what is wrong with acrobat 8, see about 9 other threads here dealing with that topic). New features are great and something worth paying for, but "improvements (fixes)" to existing features should be included with an update.