For over ten years I edited every PDF with Illustrator.

Tim-Ellis

Tim-Ellis

Well-known member
Hello Folks,

I confess. It was me. I edited every PDF in Illustrator. When I hit a problem, I placed, flattened and outlined my way out of trouble. I wrote actions and scripts so I could do it when I was in another room or watching the telly.

What could possibly go wrong?

.... turns out ... quite a lot.
 
I used to do the same up until ~2002. I went to GraphExpo saw Pitstop and bought it on the spot.
 
.... on the road to damascus ....

I guess it all depends on what kind of printing you do and what kind of press you have. It also depends on where those PDF's come from.

For many many years we made all our own artwork in house using Illustrator. A PDF made with Illustrator is pretty safe to edit with Illustrator.

Once you deal with PDF's that have come from outside, then you find yourself in hot water.


For me it was handling barcodes made using a barcode font. Once outlined the black bars printed thicker than they did when were type. You can stare at the screen all you like, there is no diference but once Ripped the outline ones have lost all that hinting data in the font. The quality of the barcode scan drops.
 
Would I sound really stupid to say that I don't see it as editing a PDF, I see it as editing art. The PDF is just the vehicle the art comes in. BUt you're showing me that I guess I'm wrong.
 
slush11 said:
Would I sound really stupid to say that I don't see it as editing a PDF, I see it as editing art. The PDF is just the vehicle the art comes in. BUt you're showing me that I guess I'm wrong.
Click to expand...

No, that's a really good point. Nothing stupid there.

The thing is the PDF "vehicle" is capable of a lot more than Illustrator can handle.

Inside a PDF you can mix RGB, CMYK and Greyscale objects. But open it in Illustrator and you get forced to convert everything into RGB or CMYK.

At that point we all basically cross our fingers and hope for the best. Then we spend a few minutes converting everything that was C=78 M=76 Y=79 K=71 in to 100% K.
 
Dov Isaacs said:
I've been telling you folks this for YEARS!

Adobe Illustrator is not a PDF file editor!

- Dov
Click to expand...

While I agree wholeheartedly in theory, and I have Pitstop so I don't need to use Illy to edit PDFs, the very fact that Illustrator can open PDFs makes it a PDF editor for those who have no alternative. Don't want people to do it? Take away the functionality.
 
DCurry said:
While I agree wholeheartedly in theory, and I have Pitstop so I don't need to use Illy to edit PDFs, the very fact that Illustrator can open PDFs makes it a PDF editor for those who have no alternative. Don't want people to do it? Take away the functionality.
Click to expand...

Actually, I would not take away the capability, but I would force a major warning dialog anytime one opened a PDF file that was not created by Illustrator itself with the editability function enabled and that wasn't subsequently edited somewhere else.

- Dov
 
Dov Isaacs said:
Actually, I would not take away the capability, but I would force a major warning dialog anytime one opened a PDF file that was not created by Illustrator itself with the editability function enabled and that wasn't subsequently edited somewhere else.

- Dov
Click to expand...

I agree with this idea but I'd rather see Adobe release a product that was an Illustrator/InDesign style PDF editor...
 
DCurry said:
While I agree wholeheartedly in theory, and I have Pitstop so I don't need to use Illy to edit PDFs, the very fact that Illustrator can open PDFs makes it a PDF editor for those who have no alternative. Don't want people to do it? Take away the functionality.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Add Photoshop to that list too that should not be allowed to open a PDF.
 
My issue is that I'm almost always dealing with supplied art where I need to add a cut line (for wide format) that is a specific spot color with a specific name (Die Line) for outsourcing purposes. Now, I am sure there is a way to do this in PitStop, but I find it takes me all of 1 minute to just open it in Illustrator and get it the hell done. Beyond that, when the file comes back to me from the cutter adding their reg marks and whatnot, I now need to delete the cutline or it prints as a white outline. Doing that on Pitstop for something that is 100 up is effing insane. Especially since the die line is only visibly in outline mode and god forbid you grab the wrong line and delete the wrong content because CTRL+Z just doesn't work. BOooooooo to Pitstop.
 
slush11 said:
My issue is that I'm almost always dealing with supplied art where I need to add a cut line (for wide format) that is a specific spot color with a specific name (Die Line) for outsourcing purposes. Now, I am sure there is a way to do this in PitStop, but I find it takes me all of 1 minute to just open it in Illustrator and get it the hell done. Beyond that, when the file comes back to me from the cutter adding their reg marks and whatnot, I now need to delete the cutline or it prints as a white outline. Doing that on Pitstop for something that is 100 up is effing insane. Especially since the die line is only visibly in outline mode and god forbid you grab the wrong line and delete the wrong content because CTRL+Z just doesn't work. BOooooooo to Pitstop.
Click to expand...

You need to get some PitStop training, deleting a dieline based on a spot color name is simple enough. Just make an Action List to select and delete the spot color, should take less than a minute.

We do monthly online training workshops the content of which is customer driven, these are also recorded.
There's also a very active Linkedin group that has all the recordings and agendas with indexed timelines, you should check them out.
 
Last edited:
abc said:
You need to get some PitStop training, deleting a dieline based on a spot color name is simple enough. Just make an Action List to select and delete the spot color, should take less than a minute.

We do monthly online training workshops the content of which is customer driven, these are also recorded.
There's also a very active Linkedin group that has all the recordings and agendas with indexed timelines, you should check them out.
Click to expand...


OK well that I didn't know. I'm unsure of what an Action List is, but I will check out the videos for sure. But would you agree that it would just be easier to create the die like itself in Illustrator?? Sometimes they are crazy shapes...not just rectangles. (Not that I'd know how to make a rectangle one either LOL)
 
@Simon Ivarsson
Doesn't help much. It's specific to Esko.
Import PDFs with Esko specific information in Adobe® Illustrator® without losing anything!

@slush11
I would say it depends on the Die, there are vector tools in PitStop for making rectangular and circular/ellipitical shapes and also tools for moving points and bezier curves.
I guess the Illustrator tools are more specific and also more familiar.

Personally I would make the die in illustrator using the PDF as a template, then delete the PDF and then import a PDF with just the dieline into Acrobat using the 'Place PDF' tool in PitStop.
I'd stick it on it's own layer as well to make it easier to handle and make sure it overprinted etc.
 
prepressdork said:
While I agree, there are times when we simply don't have a choice as we can't get proper art (or a corrected PDF) from the customer.
Click to expand...

I second that, especially since I'll never have Pitstop where I work. We don't get enough PDFs from customers to justify it.
 
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