Low Res PDFs to client

[amybest222]

Right now we are having (some) issues with clients and Low res PDFs. The Salesperson refuses to educate the client aboout overprint preview settings in Acrobat. The problem is our workflow (Prinergy 4.2) publishes a vector based / transparency includerd content (traps removed) PDF. With the complex files that clients are sending these days, Using Pitstop to convert spot/transparency always dosnt give the correct result. We get the usual " they dont have this problem with other printers"
Spot colors with items with drop shadows appear like white boxes. The pdfs obviously open correctly on our computers.. but I will tell you that i see the same pdf open differntly in acrobat 9,7 and 9Reader..

What type of pdfs are you sending to clients?
What is your workflow?

 

[Greg_Firestone]

Hi Amy,

What is the purpose of the low res PDF? Is it provided to the clients to show content, color, etc.? Are you customers viewing the proofs onscreen only or are they printing them out? The overall purpose may have an impact on what is the best solution for you.

Have you ever considered sending a rasterized PDF? You don't have to worry about overprints or transparency and no matter what Acrobat version they use, the content will look the same (excluding color). The downside is that there is no live text, text quality is not as crisp since it's raster, and file sizes are bigger.

Regards,
Greg

 

[jetzerm]

Greg has the right answer with the RasterPDF. We have Prinergy and been making 150dpi anti-aliased CMYK Zip Compressed PDFs for clients for a long time. A client that is "less than tech savvy" this will worked well for content approvals. The down side some clients may think there is something wrong. We put a Prinergy Page Mark that states it is a LOW RES non-editable PDF for content approval only. One plus, is the customer can't take the PDF to another printer to use.

The "we don't have this problem with our other printer" comment - if I had a nickel for every time I've heard that.

 

[amybest222]

Correct- these are usually 2 or 3rd generation corrections for content only..But when dealing with "particular clents" they want it all.
Raster.( i hate that word )... it might be a work around. unfortunately the size of the file needs to be preferably 2mg and less..
Also- inevitably, flattening transparencies gives those "white hairlines" that clients so adore... trying to come up with a standard procedure to meet all clients wants and needs is almost impossible.... thanks

 

[Stephen Marsh]

As you have Kodak Prinergy, you could benefit from the integration with Kodak InSite Prepress Portal. With IPP's SmartReview client, the whole low-resolution issue is removed as the press-ready hi-res data is pixel streamed on demand for the current zoom and pan view. You don't have to flatten transparencies if you are using the APPE setting in your Workflow rather than CPSI. There are many benefits to the system.

Stephen Marsh

 

[Paul Santer]

Hi Amy, why do you rely upon sales people to make decisions they are not educated to make?
PDF is a very versatile file format and one of the downsides of this is that it can contain many features unsupported by your target audience. My understanding of using PDF as a method of Proofing is that you must undertake evaluation of every point at which the PDF will be rendered and if this is not done then the results will be unreliable. I appreciate in production this is not always practical but then problems will be inevitable and one has to accept an increased amount of spoilage. As already stated if you rasterise the PDF to an image format using the RIP for final output then the chance of errors will be reduced. But I'm sure you could implement procedures that would greatly reduce your errors based on a standard PDF workflow.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

@Paul I think what we are referring to here is the kind of problems that you get because customers are behaving sometimes like headless chickens. They send a file and if you bounce it back they tell you the file "has mysteriously misspelled some words… that they swear were ok when they sent the file"…they send you a new file, and after checking for standard errors you want your back free so you want to bounce them something to sign off so that you have a receipt that you have done your job of making sure the right content is printed.

The technical quality we can check, but it's nice not to have the responsibilities that names, phone numbers and prices are the correct iteration. (I think some clients never "sleep on" a design and bouncing it back the next day for approval they see what they should have seen if they had better routine)

 

[Greg_Firestone]

Just curious if you provide your customers with a small PDF that explains how they should setup their Acrobat for optimal viewing. You can include settings for different OS's and versions (within reason). Include it with every proof sent. It's more proactive than relying on the sales team who, as you stated, don't want to be bothered. While your at it, include the home phone numbers of all the sales people as the support # if they have viewing issues Just kidding!

Greg

 

[Glenn McDowall]

I used to get this from sales all the time, along with the White text on overprint that shows on the customer's screen and doesn't print. Since adding the following text to the bottom of all emails 95% of these queries are gone.

Please ensure PDFs are checked in Acrobat and the Overprint Preview Preference is set to ON (or 'Always')

 

[Paul Santer]

@Lukas I'm not sure one can do much about the headless chicken scenario, proofing practices have become a bit sloppy over the years in order to keep up with reduced margins, decreased run lengths and massive changes in technology.
I'm not sure one can do much more than implement a reliable internal process that builds internal confidence and hope that this confidence spreads to ones customers.
When I first started in Prepress we wet proofed pretty much all our work, but even then it was some times difficult to get the final signature on the proof but much easier to chop the heads off the headless chickens ;-).

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

As far as setting up the Acrobat correctly, that too is one big problem… many clients don't use Acrobat, but will rely on other PDF viewers. Here is an interesting article: PDF viewers

(this is another reason why I prefer to send the customer an RGB (sRGB embedded to force CMM) that simulates overprint rather than a CMYK and tell customers to turn overprint on)

 

[mattbeals]

With later versions of Acrobat Reader, like X, they will automatically turn on overprint preview when opening PDF/X files. You certainly can make a low fes PDF/X-1a or X-4.

 

[amybest222]

Thanks to everybody for their input