latest InDesign beta opens/converts PDF files

[repro_glenn]

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/convert-pdf-to-indesign-file.html#:~:text=Launch%20InDesign%20(Beta)%20app.,the%20document%20per%20your%20requirement.

It's limited to PDFs created by InDesign at the moment.
Only noticed this yesterday. Anyone tried?

 

[YourCastle]

i wanted this so long ago that I gave up on the idea.

I'm glad you posted cuz I would've never known. thanks!

 

[MacTwidget]

I have tried it out. This will come in very handy.
Hopefully one day it will expand to PDFs created in other apps.
I do feel for the small developers of plug-ins. Markzware has a similar product, PDFMarkz. This will definitely cut into their revenue.
I had a friend's company, a lowly apprentice productions, that was assimilated by Quark back in the day. They made cool extensions for QuarkXPress, I think Quark felt threatened.

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Note that this is limited to PDF files exported from InDesign! This is very similar to the issue of use of Adobe Illustrator as a PDF editor; it is not an editor of any arbitrary PDF file nor will InDesign's PDF opening/conversion capability. (In the beta test phase of InDesign 1.0, there was a feature to open PDF files and allow editing of same and subsequently merge with other InDesign content. That feature was dropped prior to InDesign 1.0's release since there were too many situations in which InDesign could not map PDF features to those of InDesign!)

Be very, very, very careful about use of any product or feature that purports to allow editing or converting of arbitrary PDF files. I know of absolutely no product that can full convert or edit any arbitrary PDF file. This include products from Markzware as well as Adobe.

One must understand that in order to provide full, lossless editing of a PDF file or conversion of a PDF file to another format, an application program must support the entire PDF imaging model and specification … and that includes the ISO 32000-2 PDF specification. Even the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Pro does not fully support that specification at this time.

- Dov

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

Note that this is limited to PDF files exported from InDesign! This is very similar to the issue of use of Adobe Illustrator as a PDF editor; it is not an editor of any arbitrary PDF file nor will InDesign's PDF opening/conversion capability. (In the beta test phase of InDesign 1.0, there was a feature to open PDF files and allow editing of same and subsequently merge with other InDesign content. That feature was dropped prior to InDesign 1.0's release since there were too many situations in which InDesign could not map PDF features to those of InDesign!)

Be very, very, very careful about use of any product or feature that purports to allow editing or converting of arbitrary PDF files. I know of absolutely no product that can full convert or edit any arbitrary PDF file. This include products from Markzware as well as Adobe.

One must understand that in order to provide full, lossless editing of a PDF file or conversion of a PDF file to another format, an application program must support the entire PDF imaging model and specification … and that includes the ISO 32000-2 PDF specification. Even the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Pro does not fully support that specification at this time.

- Dov

Hey Dov, when will I be able to print to .PS via InDesign with trapping enabled? It's been broken for 3 years on the Windows side of things.

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Since I don't work for Adobe, I have no way of knowing that …

That having been said, I would NEVER endorse printing to PostScript. If you really need PostScript, export to PDF and then create PostScript from Acrobat Pro.

 

[jwheeler]

@Dov Isaacs , every time I see you comment on here, I think Mandy Patinkin has joined the PP forum! You're his doppelganger based on his character in Homeland. Here's another photo of him.

 

[scotts]

I have tried it out. This will come in very handy.
Hopefully one day it will expand to PDFs created in other apps.
I do feel for the small developers of plug-ins. Markzware has a similar product, PDFMarkz. This will definitely cut into their revenue.
I had a friend's company, a lowly apprentice productions, that was assimilated by Quark back in the day. They made cool extensions for QuarkXPress, I think Quark felt threatened.

I do remember ALAP. They had quite a few very good plug-ins back in the day. And I remember when Quark assimilated them. I was not happy.

 

[repro_glenn]

Thanks Dov,
I'm thinking that it's limited to InDesign generated PDFs because Adobe knows the results (structure) of the process (ID Export to PDF) inside out, and this makes it easier to convert backwards. Either that or they've been adding some InDesign structure hints into pdfs.
Often the pdf is all that the customer has and they are coming with a Business Card but want Letterheads and Envelopes, they're not fussed about the fonts used for the body text.
I often have to construct something new in InDesign then spend time splicing a PDF into many parts, maybe take bits into Illy too, or cut and paste in Pitstop. Its going to be a lot quicker to start fresh in just one app.

One concern is getting a complicated logo from say Illy placed into InDesign, that when it comes back from PDF is now at best a complicated group, and at worst a few hundred vectors.

Could someone do a pitstop edit to a pdf and see if that still opens in Id

 

[chriscozi]

Thanks Dov,
I'm thinking that it's limited to InDesign generated PDFs because Adobe knows the results (structure) of the process (ID Export to PDF) inside out, and this makes it easier to convert backwards. Either that or they've been adding some InDesign structure hints into pdfs.

Heavens, joining me in the Adobe 'paranoia' crowd?
LOL

 

[modgraph]

Note that this is limited to PDF files exported from InDesign! This is very similar to the issue of use of Adobe Illustrator as a PDF editor; it is not an editor of any arbitrary PDF file nor will InDesign's PDF opening/conversion capability. (In the beta test phase of InDesign 1.0, there was a feature to open PDF files and allow editing of same and subsequently merge with other InDesign content. That feature was dropped prior to InDesign 1.0's release since there were too many situations in which InDesign could not map PDF features to those of InDesign!)

Be very, very, very careful about use of any product or feature that purports to allow editing or converting of arbitrary PDF files. I know of absolutely no product that can full convert or edit any arbitrary PDF file. This include products from Markzware as well as Adobe.

One must understand that in order to provide full, lossless editing of a PDF file or conversion of a PDF file to another format, an application program must support the entire PDF imaging model and specification … and that includes the ISO 32000-2 PDF specification. Even the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Pro does not fully support that specification at this time.

- Dov

Received a few PDF files from InDesign which do not output correctly to film. Lettering with a stroke is not rendered properly, stroke appears to be offset slightly to the left of the character. Using Illustrator, not a PDF editor, to get a little insight as to what is going on found that the fill of the characters is point text while the outlines are individual characters. When I create a file myself, Windows InDesign, 19.5 and export to PDF and examine both the outline and fill are individual point text objects. Customer added the stroke to simulate some old style engraving fonts and they claim when they output the native InDesign file the stroke is true. Using Acrobat Pro at maximum enlargement also shows this misalignment, in the e-mail address [email protected] which when I copy and paste results in this taa@@pninjupninjurylawrylaw..cocomm. Just checked the PDF properties as I had assumed that the customer was using something current and find that they are using CS6 on a Mac and the PDF is saved as 1.6 (Acrobat 7). Think that this is the issue, do you agree?

 

[Dov Isaacs]

@modgraph,

I looked at the PDF file you attached.

What I immediately noticed is that the PDF file was produced by printing to PostScript and then converting the PostScript to PDF via Acrobat Distiller. That is a very nice 1999 style workflow. PDF production from InDesign should be done via the Export PDF function in InDesign. That doesn't immediately explain what caused the problem, but we should at least eliminate use of archaic workflow.

And this is definitely not a “CS6 on a Mac” specific issue.

My examination shows that there are a number of text runs that show text both filled and outlined text. That is obviously the problem.

What we don't know is what was done in the original InDesign .INDD file. InDesign does allow for simultaneously filling and outlining text, generally done for special effects such as either artificial embolding of text or even providing colored outlines of text. But you really need to do some very specific work to cause that to happen. In this particular example, a cursory examination of the PDF file in Acrobat doesn't seem to indicate that either of those reasons is why the text is artificially outlined as well as filled.

Without the original InDesign document (and fonts), it is literally impossible to know why this happened. If I was a betting man, which I am not, I would guess that part of this “design” may have been imported (or copied) from a Microsoft Word (or PowerPoint) document in which such embolding is routinely performed artificially if the author requests a bold face which isn't installed on their system.

Provide the InDesign file “package” and I can confirm what is really going on here.

- Dov

 

[modgraph]

The outline is to simulate the slightly bolder look of old engraved fonts, or at least that is what they told me. I am a 95% Illustrator person and do use the appearance panel for strokes so that I can place the stroke totally on the outside of the character to maintain the character shapes. Customer did supply the original InDesign file but when they packaged the job only a single font that was in the package was usable, the others showed a file size of zero. Have received packaged files for Mac's before and the fonts were usable but were usually OTF fonts. They have lost their ability to output film and I was contacted to help them out. There is some money here but not if I need to trouble shoot each job or open in InDesign, activate fonts and then output from InDesign. They are most likely still using Type 1 fonts but why would they show up as a zero size?

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

The outline is to simulate the slightly bolder look of old engraved fonts, or at least that is what they told me. I am a 95% Illustrator person and do use the appearance panel for strokes so that I can place the stroke totally on the outside of the character to maintain the character shapes. Customer did supply the original InDesign file but when they packaged the job only a single font that was in the package was usable, the others showed a file size of zero. Have received packaged files for Mac's before and the fonts were usable but were usually OTF fonts. They have lost their ability to output film and I was contacted to help them out. There is some money here but not if I need to trouble shoot each job or open in InDesign, activate fonts and then output from InDesign. They are most likely still using Type 1 fonts but why would they show up as a zero size?

Wouldn't it be easier to have them output the file a different way (correctly?) than trying to figure out the issues with those specific fonts?

I'm pretty sure the 0 bytes font type is .ttc when viewed on a PC, which is a packaged file of multiple fonts. You can convert the font on the Mac to .ttf files and then resend, but obviously that's not going to solve any long term problems for the way you interface with your client.

Convert TTC and DFONT to TTF online — Transfonter

I've used this website quite a few times.

 

[modgraph]

This is the response that I just received from the customer. Not at all what I suggested but it worked, outline is precisely where it should be. Not sure what a 100% screens is but am assuming that they meant 100 line rather than the standard 133 that I run for them. Thanks for your insight into this matter. I too am guilty of using an older version (Illustrator 2020) for way more years that I should have before jumping into 2024. Why did I wait, I really don't know. Perhaps it was that a few of my plug-ins were updated and would require a paid upgrade but think that it may be a number of factors including my age that is catching up to me.

The Stroked film.pdf file that I am resending to you have the 100% line screen.
So I now outlined the fonts, went into my never Indesign and exported in the new version of Pdf.

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Problem with older Type 1 fonts from MacOS is that they are stored in the font file's resource fork as opposed to the file's data fork for which Windows has no support. Current OpenType fonts are in fact cross-platform compatible at the file level (all content in data fork).

Again, older versus newer versions of Adobe software are not the issue here!

The original technique used by the customer to achieve a certain “look” was not wrong but if not applied correctly or if the particular RIP is wonky in terms of its interpretation of the PDF, who knows.

Personally, I have used the technique of applying a stroke as well as a fill to certain text to achieve a slightly more bold effect very successfully. That having been said, if you don't carefully choose the width of the stroke, the results can be somewhat messy. FWIW, 100 versus 133 line screens shouldn't (famous last words) make any difference here.

And again, export PDF directly; don't go through no stink'in PostScript/Distiller hackery!

- Dov

 

[zevrix]

...PostScript to PDF via Acrobat Distiller. That is a very nice 1999 style workflow

May I nitpick? More like 2004. It took time till direct PDF from InDesign could be confidently supplied for reliable printing.

 

[Dov Isaacs]

May I nitpick? More like 2004. It took time till direct PDF from InDesign could be confidently supplied for reliable printing.

You may nitpick all you want, but I was directly involved with end-to-end PDF workflow at Adobe at that time (and through mid-2021) and worked directly with the Adobe's InDesign, Core Technology, and Print development and quality assurance teams in consultation with some major US and international print companies. Although InDesign 1.0 had some issues with direct PDF creation for printing, by the time InDesign 2.0 came out, PDF created by direct export was at least if not more reliable than PDF created by distillation of PostScript from InDesign – this was the feedback that we got from our industry partners.

That having been said, there were a number of issues of RIPs trying to deal with PDF that had objects with “live transparency” within them and that and didn't actually RIP the PDF, but rather, PostScript from flattened PDF where the flattening of PDF transparency in conjunction with ICC color management. RIPs that directly supported PDF based on either Adobe PDF Print Engine or Harlequin technology effectively resolved the vast majority of those problems. We also traced some issues to some third party “workflow” solutions that munged the PDF to fix what were thought to be problems but often did much more damage than good.

There was also the problem of Luddite print service providers who were still stuck in the 1980s and 1990s in terms of their workflow practices and RIP software.

- Dov

 

[zevrix]

Thanks for replying, Dov. Oh yeah I'm well aware of your impressive credentials - after all, I was on the InDesign mailing list back when InDesign 1.0 was released!

My point is that in the real world, the PostScript-to-PDF workflow remained largely a standard well into 2004, whether it was justified or not.

As you know, the mass acceptance of InDesign and switching from Quark didn't start until InDesign CS was released, which was in the end of 2003. And even after switching to InDesign, many users kept their established Distiller workflows for quite some time. Experimenting with newer ways of PDF creation – and risking enormous losses should something go wrong – wasn't the highest priority.

(Also, in addition to the concerns you've mentioned, there was also something related to CID fonts in PDF produced directly from InDesign, of which I'm sure you know more than I do. Eventually, this ceased being an issue, too.)

 

[Dov Isaacs]

The issue of CID-encoded fonts was totally an issue of RIPs/DFEs and various third-party PDF workflow products that either (1) simply ignored implementation of such font handling believing that CID-encoding was exclusively for them “foreign” language fonts (Asian for the most part) or (2) incorrectly implemented the specification. Fortunately, over time that problematic software seems to have mostly disappeared from use.

BTW, very few know about the very direct role John Warnock played in the rollout of InDesign. The fact was that the existence of the K2 project within Aldus was the primary reason why Adobe acquired Aldus, certainly not to acquire Freehand or any other existing Aldus product. K2 was released as InDesign. At the time, I was running Adobe's Interoperability Group that had the responsibility of making sure that Adobe's products worked with each other in a smooth workflow. As InDesign ramped up towards its first beta release, John asked me to make InDesign workflow testing (especially with regards to print) as our highest priority; we served as a secondary QA organization working out of San Jose assisting InDesign's own QA group. John was an exceptionally intensive user of Adobe's products and technologies. Before InDesign 1.0 release, it wasn't unusual for me to get e-mails at home asking me to try out something in InDesign for which the behaviour didn't seem quite kosher … and if it was a bug (which it usually was), enter the bug in the system and make sure it got fixed (but not to use his name in the bug report). Personally, once the InDesign 1.0 pre-beta was available internally, that was the only software I used for any document preparation, both professionally and personally. Getting InDesign 1.0 released and getting bugs identified and fixed all the way through InDesign 3 was a major part of my life back then.

- Dov