Distilled Quark PS into Prinergy workflow

[Nick Danger]

We are running Prinergy 5.1.2.1 and occasionally receive or generate Quark Postscripts / Distill in Acrobat and process into Prinergy.

Ex
Machine A - MAC G5 OS 10.6.4
Q8.1.6.2
Adobe PDF 8.0 Driver
Distiller 9
Distilled Postscripts come into Prinergy w/correct offsets

Machine B - MAC G5 OS 10.4.11
Q8.1.6.2
Adobe PDF 8.0 Driver
Distiller 9
Distilled Postscripts come into Prinergy w/incorrect offsets
If we load the Postscripts that we generate, they come in correctly...

I have verified that both machines are identical other than OS in Software, PPD and Distiller...It seems to me that the difference is Distiller, however, both machines have the same versions and settings...

Thanks,

Nd

 

[leonardr]

I can't speak to the Quark issue, but I can say that you have a software installation issue.

1) Adobe does NOT support installation of multiple versions of Acrobat on the same computer.
2) Acrobat 8 is NOT supported on Mac OS 10.6
3) Acrobat 9 is NOT supported on Mac OS 10.4

Leonard

 

[Shawn]

Hi Nick

Does machine A have the Creo Distiller Assistant extension loaded? That would correct the offsets on the Quark Postscript when distiller creates the PDF. If you process the .ps directly Prinergy should automatically fix them as well. You can tell if Distiller Assistant is loaded by checking the text that Distiller shows at startup. If it's not loaded, try running the Kodak Workshop installer again on that machine and it should install.

Or you could always change Quark preferences to produce postscript instead of a PDF with the export to PDF command. That option will correctly hold the trimbox offsets and produce a .ps/pdf file that works fine in a Prinergy workflow. If you set it up to go into a Distiller watched hotfolder you can effectively get an export to PDF through Distiller in one step. It replicates the Adobe PDF print driver method, but for me has been more reliable and faster.

Good Luck
Shawn

 

[Nick Danger]

I can't speak to the Quark issue, but I can say that you have a software installation issue.

1) Adobe does NOT support installation of multiple versions of Acrobat on the same computer.
2) Acrobat 8 is NOT supported on Mac OS 10.6
3) Acrobat 9 is NOT supported on Mac OS 10.4

Leonard

Interesting, support meaning they won't work? or just that Adobe doesn't support this with any techinal expertise?

 

[Nick Danger]

Hi Nick

Does machine A have the Creo Distiller Assistant extension loaded? That would correct the offsets on the Quark Postscript when distiller creates the PDF. If you process the .ps directly Prinergy should automatically fix them as well. You can tell if Distiller Assistant is loaded by checking the text that Distiller shows at startup. If it's not loaded, try running the Kodak Workshop installer again on that machine and it should install.

Or you could always change Quark preferences to produce postscript instead of a PDF with the export to PDF command. That option will correctly hold the trimbox offsets and produce a .ps/pdf file that works fine in a Prinergy workflow. If you set it up to go into a Distiller watched hotfolder you can effectively get an export to PDF through Distiller in one step. It replicates the Adobe PDF print driver method, but for me has been more reliable and faster.

Good Luck
Shawn

Shawn, thanks for the info, In Q, we always use a PS workflow/then Distill as we have had too many issues exporting directly to PDF.

machine A works as Q-PS / Distiller / Prinergy OK
machine B works as Q-PS / Distiller / Prinergy Not OK
machine B works as Q-PS / Prinergy OK

As far as the Creo Distiller Assistant extension being loaded, do you think it's a matter of installation sequence? Meaning if Workshop was installed before CS, would it not see to install?

Will reinstall Workshop

 

[Shawn]

Hi Nick

I don't trust the Quark to directly create PDFs either, but you can change the settings so it will produce a postscript file that you can then use Distiller to convert to a PDF. Quark has the code for producing .ps files down fine, so the PDF produced this way with Distiller works as well as the PDF produced by making Postscript through the print drivers. In fact, with Quark 8, this is the only way that you can hold live transparency out of Quark. More info on that is in this thread if you're interested. http://printplanet.com/forums/quark/20355-quark-8-1-native-transparency-pdf-export

When .ps is produced by exporting, Quark correctly includes the trimbox settings, so Distiller Assistant isn't needed. If you use the print drivers there was a bug the kept the correct trimbox from being included. I thought that Quark fixed it in later versions of 8.1, but I haven't made PDFs by printing postscript in quite some time.

You're correct, that if Workshop is installed before Creative Suite, you won't get the full set of plugins in Acrobat. A Workshop reinstall should fix that.

Shawn