Apogee Softproof PDFs

[Ampersand]

Im getting PDF's to proof from someone who is exporting them from Apogee which always have an endless amount of display errors.

I know they are using Apogee, not sure what version or how they are creating the PDF. Other then that all I know is in the metadata says the file has been normalized and the producer is "Result Export Task Processor"

I get the errors on acrobat pro 6-9, mac & pc, with pitstop installed and without. Errors are things like:

Critical parse failure: Unknown character in content stream
Insufficient data for an image
An error exists on this page. Acrobat may not display the page correctly...

After the errors you get a Frankenstein of a mess displayed with most of the content missing.

Not sure if apogee adds proprietary agfa content to the PDF which renders it just about useless outside of the workflow?

Just checking if there is a blatantly obvious answer that someone who uses Apogee would know because they have seen or heard of it before. I understand the details are lacking.

Cheers

 

[Colorblind]

I do export PDFs from ApogeeX, though I export them as PDFX1a. Are the PDFs trapped? I've seen the "An error exists on this page. Acrobat may not display the page correctly" message in Acrobat when using trapping in Apogee.

 

[Ampersand]

A file that I have that works (exported from apogee) with no errors is tagged as not being trapped. Same file, but generated yesterday is tagged as trapped:unknown, has more errors then you could swing a stick at.

Weird, the metadata on the bad file says Trapped:Unknown but within the file itself it says <pdf:Trapped>False</pdf:Trapped>

I will let them know about the trapping and see if they have any better results.

Cheers

 

[Ampersand]

I was just able to dig up a configuration manual for ApogeeX online and it says in it when using PDF Proofer with 3.5 without the SP1 patch, if you export a PDF without embedding ICC profiles in the PDF, Acrobat will not be able to open the file.

This was resolved in 3.5 with SP1 and version 4.

Maybe this is another culprit.

 

[rich apollo]

ApogeeX has two ways to export a PDF, that I am aware of.

The PDF Proofer creates a PDF that is all raster data. It's basically a TIFF in PDF clothing.

You can also click on a page in the workflow, and export a PDF. This method simply barfs up the same PDF that was input.

As far as I know, Apogee can't export a PDF with trapping because it only performs raster-based trapping. PDF's exported by the PDF Proofer will show whatever trapping was specified in the workflow, but again this is strictly CT data - like trapping in Photoshop.

 

[Colorblind]

As far as I know, Apogee can't export a PDF with trapping because it only performs raster-based trapping.

Sorry to correct you Rich but yes, ApogeeX can export trapped composites (not rastered) high-resolution PDFs if you have the appropriate option which is called "PDF-Ready". Trapping can be included in the PDF either as annotations understood by Adobe-Extreme compliant rips or objects.

 

[rich apollo]

Thanks, Colorblind.

 

[KirkMVPGroup]

I am running ApogeeX 2.2.1. Can the "Export" task processor be used post-render to provide a soft-proof that's been rasterized?
Or, how can I get TIFF separations out of Apogeex?

 

[Ampersand]

Sorry, been a long time but I thought I would update this.

Ended up the files were sent from an Exchange Server/Outlook and our mail server is sendmail on BSD. Since Outlook doesnt encode PDF file attachments as Base64 the PDFs get corrupted in transfer because of how windows and unix differ in the handling of carriage returns and line feeds.

Had them zip the files and all was ok. Another solution would be for them to use Thunderbird which would encode the PDF files in Base64 and won't corrupt on transfer.

So it had nothing to do with Apogee in the end.

Cheers