Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

[disbellj]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

The only problems I've had with Office is when I make a PDF that looks to have transparency, and it doesn't look in the PDF like what it does in the Word program. The Word doc had a "picture" of type (looked like outlined type) that looked yellow, and used no transparency but looked like it did, and all I could see was that the "picture" was formatted as 70 Brightness, 37 Contrast (giving a yellow appearance, but showing some type of transparency look because the object underneath had it's color affected). I have the Word doc and resulting PDF if you'd like to look at it, and hopefully tell me how I could get a PDF showing the "transparent look" (without using InDesign to "fix" it to give the transparent look, which is how I got the job out - having Word and InDesign open side-by-side and judging the yellow's color in Word and trying to match it in InDesign using Transparency and Blending Modes).

Note: I'm using Office 2003 (Of course I upgraded to it right before the upgrade came out to 2007.grrrr. My life story, always holding off on upgrading and when I finally do, a newer version comes out, no matter what program or vendor we're talking about).

Don

 

[Jeff.Bell]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

Don - the Microsoft add-in for Office 2007 does support transparency and should give you better results. With Office 2003, you must have been using a third-party PDF converter. Some of these (especially the ones that work as print drivers) tend to preserve less information (and fidelity) than others.
Do send me the Word doc that gave you trouble and we can confirm that PDF from 2007 works better for you.

 

[judyj]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

So, are you saying that we can download and use the 2007 add-in with Office
2003??

With Office 2003, you must have been using a third-party PDF converter.
Some of these (especially the ones that work as print drivers) tend to
preserve less information (and fidelity) than others.
>Do send me the Word doc that gave you trouble and we can confirm that PDF
>from 2007 works better for you.
>
>

 

[Jeff.Bell]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

Judy - Nope. The PDF and XPS add-ins for Office 2007 require Office 2007. We did work in Office 2007 to support better export to fixed formats. I believe that Acrobat 8.1 takes some advantage of this new work, as do our add-ins. This is one of those new capabilities in Office 2007 that I would encourage everyone to upgrade for.

 

[duck]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

I have to agree with Judy. The biggest issue is that real designers use a real graphic design program. All the upgrades to publisher in the world won't help us production people much until the office people with publisher learn how to create a decent file.

Maybe if you were to put some kind of "training wheels" on the software that will alert people or give them an electric shock or something when they use RGB color pallets, don't create bleed, use 72 dpi images, build completely wrong file sizes and whatnot. Other than that, publisher has been completely worthless in my experience. I can occasionally get a decent PDF out that I can fix with Pitstop and go to plate, but for a lot of the files we get in it's just easier to re-build the file for them in another program.

 

[disbellj]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

Unfortunately Jeff, I still haven't gotten my ROI for 2003 I purchased. So unless there is a real NEED to upgrade, I won't. Supposedly 2003 was so much better, and I've had to use it for a handful of jobs (just don't get much Office stuff thank God).

Don

 

[mattbeals]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

I have to say that Publisher 2007 is a big step forward for the product. Publisher has never been "that bad" depending on how you as a service provider work with it. The biggest problem that Publisher has had was it's reliance on the GDI. But this is a problem most WIndows applications have. It's fine that it's all sRGB. Even when printing separations from Publisher 2003 depending on how you configured your printer drive the separations from Publisher, which should be grayscale, come out as RGB gray. Now knowing these things you can build processes and procedures around Publisher, and other GDI based applications, to deal with them in an intelligent way. Now that Vista has changed it's underlying technology for display and color management many of these issues should go away. What will not go away is the user, which is really the root of many peoples complaints regarding Publisher. The Office 2007 plug-ins for exporting to PDF and XPS work extremely well in my experience. The setting for "commercial printing" I'm not too thrilled with. I don't know what CMYK it's being converted to. Best I can tell it's some derivative of SWOP. Having said that I would much rather let Publisher (and any other program from Windows) export RGB and I'll take care of the color conversion parts.

Is Publisher a great program for "professionals"? No, it wasn't intended to be. But Publisher 2007 is a big step forwards with it's ability to make a PDF. But being "professionals" we should be able to handle these situations. Knowing and understanding your audience goes a long ways towards making things easier as well as having the procedures and processes in place to deal with them. If you build your processes and procedures well enough you'll generally be able to take files from the worst of the worst and get something that is printable even though it may not be to "our standards".

 

[disbellj]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

I would just make sure the rip is using a profile that, when printed, you can match the proof.

I would say use a profile that closely matches the printing condition. But since we haven't had one for offset sheetfed printing, and SWOP is the default in Adobe apps, then we just proof the SWOP numbers and can match them on press pretty close.

For instance, my imposition proof uses the SWOP profile and Relative Colorimetric Intent to convert from the SWOP numbers to proofer profile, and my contract proof uses our custom press profile and Absolute Colorimetric Intent to convert SWOP numbers (assigned or assuming our press profile) to the proofer profile. They both match well, but not as good as if I use an industry-standard profile such as GRACoL2006_Coated1v2 as source for both proofs.

Don

 

[4stateprint]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

Don,

The transparency problems is just one of the problems I've been having. And I really hate to have to go in and "fix" someone's work - as someone put it earlier "they think that we are looking to take advantage of them..." But the transparency is a MAJOR issue that I would personally like to see Microsofts developers remove in future versions. I had a customer with a picture that they tweeked in Pagemaker and gave to me and then they got extremely ummm upset when it did not match what they had tweeked it to on screen. So if you someone has a fix for that I am interested. So far the Primo PDF has gotten me by thanks to all of you that suggested that I owe you all a virtual million... don't all try to collect at once haha.

 

[disbellj]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

I agree Dustin, with all you've said. As far as the color on your customer's screen: They are using an application whose color management was not near as good as today's color management, and I bet they don't even have their monitor calibrated and profiled and color management set up in Pagemaker. So that it doesn't match the proof you make is expected IMO.

Don

 

[mattbeals]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

PitStop and InstantPDF and definitely indispensable PDF workflow tools to have. Using Instant PDF queues to streamline the process is a real Godsend. Assuming though that you build into the preflight profile and the action lists a certain level of intelligence. Where they fall down, and they do, is in the color conversions of Office (and other GDI applications) documents. It's not because things are s/RGB but rather the mechanism by which they are converted. Enfocus doesn't have a sophisticated way of doing it. THey offload the color conversion process to Windows ICM and do a simple profile conversion. Where as Callas in their pdfColorConvert plug-in (and server based version) handle it in a much more sophisticated way by not only relying on a excellent CMS but more so by tuning the conversion process itself with real intelligence.

Callas pdfColorConvert simply does the best job of color conversions of Office documents because of the special settings used for converting Office documents. They have tuned their conversion processes to deal with Office (sRGB) PDF's in a special way to maintain as much as possible the visual vibrancy of the colors as well as finding those pesky RGB gray and black objects. Further, they can detect and fix RGB gray images and convert them to black. PitStop simply cannot do that. If PitStop see's an RGB gray image it simply sees it as "RGB" and converts it to CMYK, or in this case 4/C black. It is more complex to get a good conversion out of PitStop than it is pdfColorConvert. With pdfColorConvert there are basically four mouse clicks. One to select the source color, second is the target CMYK space, third is spot colors (if any are present) and the fourth is the convert button. PitStop can do this to a great degree but only by building into the action list or the preflight profile (and usually a combo of both) by building a lot of variables and other intelligence into the actions and preflight profile. I know this because I've been doing it for years and I teach people how to do it. It's just so much simpler with Callas. And it's just so much better... We'll see what Enfocus does in future versions, but for now Callas simply does it more easily and better. I feel bad saying that a bit because I sell and train for Enfocus as well as Callas and they are both good friends and partners of mine. But it is the reality of the current products.

 

[disbellj]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

I agree that Callas does do it better than anything I have found as far as converting RGB or Lab gray to Black plate only. Why does it do a better job where others fail to keep stuff on the black plate? I for one think they have wider tolerances that account for small imperfections in the native programs. Let's say I have an RGB gray that is 244,242,243. Some programs would not see that as RGB gray because the three values aren't equal. Intelligent programs do see it as a gray because they realize programs make rounding errors, and so the conversion program widens it's tolerance to account for this. So a tolerance of +/- 1 would catch this RGB color and say the numbers are close enough to being equal that the color should be on the black plate only. pdfColorConvert is the best I've seen at this, and why I have hoped for a long time that Adobe would just license callas technology and not have to reinvent the wheel. But it looks like they'll stay with not color managing (or make you think they're not color managing when sometimes they are) CMYK. Color management should be as easy as:
1. Create and embed profiles in everything.
2. Honor those profiles.
3. Get as close to perfect color as possible on any given printing condition.

It's only because the vendors don't fix this stuff (Adobe, Quark, Microsoft) (making sure RGB profiles are embedded, and assuming sRGB IEC61966-2.1 for any untagged RGB) (PANTONE never making an ICC profile of their printing condition, so color managing old PANTONE colors is just not worth it), that we even HAVE to decide whether or not to color manage CMYK. The fact we have many years of PANTONE CMYK numbers that someone has to decide whether to color manage vector and images, or just images, or no CMYK. If PANTONE would have had ICC profiles embedded in their libraries, then all could be color managed. But they didn't, and now the best thing seems to be just to print to the international standard and use color management to come up with new CMYK numbers to match PANTONE colors as close as possible. But how out-of-gamut colors are mapped needs to be talked about. Are we really getting the closest Hue match to the out-of-gamut PANTONE, RGB, or Lab colors as we can with the default GRACoL2006_Coated1v2, ISOcoatedv2, and ISOuncoated? No, and we need to all be using the best profile for this. The best GRACoL2006_Coated1 profile I've found is on colormanagement.org. Test with it and see if your out-of-gamut blues and oranges and other colors don't match better when using this profile than when using other GRACoL2006_Coated1 profiles.

Don

 

[michaelejahn]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

I have a comment, but it is based on the idea that one might agree with my assumptions.

Less than 40% of the Pantone colors can be 'simulated' accurately using CMYK ink if the print condition is within ISO 12647-2 tolerances.

If we can agree on that assumption, then perhaps we might have a meaningful discussion of a reasonable workflow approach that insures that the 40% that is actually achievable in CMYK. If this is a debate includes a 'wish' that pantone somehow would insert Lab values into the a PDF for future rendering by some device that can do far better than what is achievable using ISO 12647-2 tolerances (such as some 6 or 8 colorant inkjet device) - then, well, there is no use debating.

So, can we talk ?

 

[disbellj]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

Michael Jahn,

Adobe apps offer the ability to use the Lab values of PANTONE colors (in InDesign, it's a checkbox found in Ink Manager).
If this checkbox is not checked, then the Spot color is in the PDF and when Preflighted in Acrobat Professional 8, we see that the Alternate colorspace for the Spot color is CMYK. This means that the Spot color, if converted to CMYK, will use the Alternate CMYK numbers for the Spot color in the PDF.
If this checkbox is checked, then the Spot color is in the PDF and when Preflighted in Acrobat Professional 8, we see that the Alternate colorspace for the Spot color is Lab Color. This means that the Spot color, if converted to CMYK, will use color management and the CMYK output ICC profile and Relative Colorimetric Intent with BPC to get the CMYK equivalents for the Spot color in the PDF.
This would be useful for getting a better conversion of the PANTONE color in InDesign or downstream in the production rip, as long as the CMYK ICC profile correctly shows how the press prints.
This is not useful for proofing in prepress where I work, because I send the spot color to my proofing rip, which already has the Lab values of PANTONE colors and converts using color management, the CMYKcmk Epson 7600 ICC profile, and Absolute Colorimetric Intent (this rendering intent used for proofing most of the time).

Note: When looking at Quark, we can see that Lab Color will be Alternate Color in PDF if As Is is chosen upon output from Quark. The downside to this is that all other colorspaces will send their numbers too without any ICC profile embedded. So RGB numbers will be sent, and assume the default RGB profiles in the color conversion program - not good. So unless Quark can give a way to export PDf 1.4 with live transparency, ully embedded fonts, honor all profiles on everything linked and also for the document, and pass all those profiles to the PDF, including Lab values for PANTONE colors, then Adobe is going to blow Quark away finally and prepress can actually get PDF/X-4 that has all these attributes, which Quark doesn't export PDF/X-4. If they don't do it soon, they might as well shut the doors and give the money back to the shareholders because game's over.

Don

 

[tina]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

Hi, I am a prepress operator, and have had some problems with customer supplied publisher files. I hate to see them coming, but I do get them occasionally. I have talked to tech support about these issues, and all they say is have the customer send the original files. Hard to tell a novice how to send all the support with it. Could you forward any information you have about work arounds and advice on either fixing the spot color problems.
Thank you very much.

 

[rclaborne]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

Would it be great if you could convert MS Publisher documents to Adobe InDesign?

Markzware can make it happen.

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PUB2ID is a plugin for Adobe InDesign.
- Macintosh: InDesign v4.x (CS2) (CS3 in the release version)
- Windows: InDesign v4.x and 5.x (CS2 & CS3)

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- Macintosh: OS 10.4 and higher (this ßeta not UB compatible)
- Windows: 2000, XP, Vista

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Feel free to email me with questions,

Bob

 

[WharfRat]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

Marxware has released a beta
to open Publisher files with InDesign CS2.
If the beta goes well - the release version is to be for CS3.
I will probably try it out next week.
I just received the newest version of Publisher to process a job
and was suitably unimpressed.
If the Marxware plug in works anywhere close to as well as their Quark to CS3 plug in -
it should be quite a relief.
The Quark to CS2 was pretty weak.
The Quark to CS3 is quite good - some problems, but basically good.

MSD

 

[WharfRat]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

Well ...
I downloaded and tried out the Publisher to InDesign plugin today.
I could not get it to work - at all.
Every file I tried to open - crashed on opening InDesign.
These were simple Publisher files I PDFed and "fixed" with Pitstop on Friday with no problems.
These were InDesign CS2 installs on 3 MACs in perfect operating condition.
It is possible I did something incorrectly - I don't think so.

Hopefully - the "release" versions will open a file.

MSD

 

[Franknater]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

Grrr...

I've just got a .pub doc. It's going to be a monthly newsletter! I post my workaround...other than trying to pass it off to the next operator.

Frank

EDIT:


Ah...So that's where Pagemaker has gone. LOL Or was is RageMaker? Well, we have a POS for a PC. It failed on .pdf, got other errors for making .ps, and so forth. Since it is a POS newsletter, I saved as a .tif, 300, res up to 450 with a smoother, soften the edges on the type and gave proofs. People are happy. For the amount we're charging for this, 1/2 of the cost is in prepress!!

Edited by: Frank on Oct 24, 2007 12:14 AM

 

[kyle]

Re: Alternatives to Punisher I mean Publisher

While Publisher would be my last choice of all the mainstream layout programs if I were to create something from scratch, consider the following in Publisher's defense:

If InDesign cost $100 and Publisher cost $500, and you removed the easy template layouts from Publisher and put them into InDesign, and offered InDesign in a package deal with Word, Excel and PowerPoint, the phrase "Oh God, another InDesign file" would quickly enter the prepress lexicon. I received once - and only once - a Publisher file for a publication that printed in black and a Pantone color that was almost perfectly set up and produced PDF output without any problems. I did have to coach the customer on how to prepare the files. He just happened to be in that 1% that asks important questions before investing hours designing a worthless document. I think that Publisher's failing is mostly due to its market and its interface, not its capabilities.