MS Publisher question

[gordo]

A high school student has contacted me for some help - but I'm having trouble helping him.
He's doing a single page CMYK document in MS Publisher.
His printer has told him that some large black areas need to be in rich black - 100K 60C 40M 40Y

The student thinks he's created a rich black (100K 60C 40M 40Y) and has tagged the boxes with his Rich black while the text is tagged 100 K only.

However when he exports the document as a PDF and I open it in Acrobat the Rich black boxes are 76K 72C 63M 70Y while the text is 74K 71C 65M 66Y

Where in MS Publisher or in his PDF Export setting could his screen tint builds be changing? What can he do to diagnose where his file is being changed?

(I don't have MS Publisher nor does his printer)

thx, gordo

 

[skidunn]

I would have the student save the file as a PostScipt file then let the printer use their PDF setting to convert it. When exporting out of publisher the color settings are making the rich black chnage but in 2007 there is no color management option to leave colors as is like in InDesign or Quark.

 

[DCurry]

My guess is that the designer is working in RGB mode (Publisher defaults to this with each new document created), so even if defining the color as CMYK, it is being output as RGB, so the blacks will reseparate.

Have the designer open up the Publisher file and go to Tools>Commercial Printing Tools>Color Printing... and then choose Process Colors (CMYK) from the list of choices.

Then he has to make sure that he's not applying any color conversion in the PDF settings.

As a side note, if the printshop has Pitstop they should be able to fix up the bad PDF, depending on the design and what needs to be done.

edit - Gordo, I'll be happy to have a look at the file if you need me to. I've manhandled more than my fair share of Punisher files over the years so they are no big deal to me anymore.

 

[John Clifford]

I agree, we see this a lot with Publisher because it's usually in RGB mode. AArrrrgggghhhhhh . . .

 

[mattbeals]

It could be a couple of things. If he is creating the PDF with the PDF plug-in from Acrobat it could be the Distiller settings (in the color management tab) that is making this happen. It could also be the color settings in Publisher. Everything in Publisher should always be done in RGB, except maybe for Pantone colors. The blacks in Publisher while he may be saying 100 K really need to be defined as 0,0,0 RGB. If he first started the design in RGB and then used the commercial print tools to make it CMYK then Publisher will convert the RGB colors to CMYK using its own version of SWOP (some old Agfa profile I think). Depending on which version of Windows and Publisher there will be some differences. Best bet... Leave it in RGB and fix it in Acrobat. Depending on the changes that need to be made send it to me.

 

[gordo]

Thanks for all your help and offers of help.

I've passed them along. Hopefully he can make it work. If not then I'll reach out again to one of you to see if the file can be made right.

thx, gordo

 

[David Milisock]

A high school student has contacted me for some help - but I'm having trouble helping him.
He's doing a single page CMYK document in MS Publisher.
His printer has told him that some large black areas need to be in rich black - 100K 60C 40M 40Y

The student thinks he's created a rich black (100K 60C 40M 40Y) and has tagged the boxes with his Rich black while the text is tagged 100 K only.

However when he exports the document as a PDF and I open it in Acrobat the Rich black boxes are 76K 72C 63M 70Y while the text is 74K 71C 65M 66Y

Where in MS Publisher or in his PDF Export setting could his screen tint builds be changing? What can he do to diagnose where his file is being changed?

(I don't have MS Publisher nor does his printer)

thx, gordo

Dude what version of MS Publisher? What OS?
Also is he exporting to PDF from the MS Publisher dialog or Distilling to PS?

Since MS Publisher is not color managed the answer may be in Acrobat.

 

[gordo]

Dude what version of MS Publisher? What OS?
Also is he exporting to PDF from the MS Publisher dialog or Distilling to PS?

Since MS Publisher is not color managed the answer may be in Acrobat.

"Dude"?
I don't believe that MS Publisher is available for MAC so it's probably PC. I doubt he's distilling to PS just exporting as PDF. This is not a commercial designer - just someone that needs to make a 4/C 2/S in MS Publisher and apply a rich black where needed and just black for the text as instructed by his printer.

best, gordo

 

[DCurry]

I reiterate my prior post - he can certainly define the document and colors as CMYK in Publisher (although Publisher's conversion of placed RGB images to CMYK is not spectacular). If this is done and the PDF is still wrong, then the problem lies in the PDF settings.

I've attached a PDF containing a rich black (50,30,20,100) and a pure black. There was no post-distilling editing done to this.

edit - FYI, this is using Pub 2007

 

[David Milisock]

"Dude"?
I don't believe that MS Publisher is available for MAC so it's probably PC. I doubt he's distilling to PS just exporting as PDF. This is not a commercial designer - just someone that needs to make a 4/C 2/S in MS Publisher and apply a rich black where needed and just black for the text as instructed by his printer.

best, gordo

What I ment by what vesrion of MS Publisher is Pub 200o, 2003, 2007, or 2010.
To give proper instruction I would need to mnko what version. They come out with a new version every year or two.

 

[Shawn]

I've seen this type of thing happen plenty of times. Printing to PDF generally goes through the Windows GDI print drivers which are RGB only, so you get reseparation into 4c black. Depending on the version of Pub and the PDF method used there should be a couple of workarounds. Usually the Adobe PDF export plug-in is the method I'd start with.

I'd check the settings for whatever the print driver the PDF creation utility is using (Adobe PDF) under Printers and Faxes and choose Properties and click on the Device Settings tab, make sure that the 'Convert gray text [or graphics] to Postscript Gray' options are checked. It doesn't always help, but it might. Also check that the PDF settings aren't converting all the colors to CMYK as the PDF is made. A better option is to let the joboptions tag the file like a PDF X4 and then convert in Acrobat using Acrobat or Pitstop color convert tools.

One more workaround that he might consider is to try setting the extra black colors as spot colors and then let the printer handle mapping the "rich black" spot color to a CMYK mix of 100, 60, 40, 40. Of course Publisher's handling of spot colors makes this a pain as well if the document wasn't designed as a spot color file from the beginning.

Good Luck
Shawn

 

[David Milisock]

I've seen this type of thing happen plenty of times. Printing to PDF generally goes through the Windows GDI print drivers which are RGB only, so you get reseparation into 4c black. Depending on the version of Pub and the PDF method used there should be a couple of workarounds. Usually the Adobe PDF export plug-in is the method I'd start with.

I'd check the settings for whatever the print driver the PDF creation utility is using (Adobe PDF) under Printers and Faxes and choose Properties and click on the Device Settings tab, make sure that the 'Convert gray text [or graphics] to Postscript Gray' options are checked. It doesn't always help, but it might. Also check that the PDF settings aren't converting all the colors to CMYK as the PDF is made. A better option is to let the joboptions tag the file like a PDF X4 and then convert in Acrobat using Acrobat or Pitstop color convert tools.

One more workaround that he might consider is to try setting the extra black colors as spot colors and then let the printer handle mapping the "rich black" spot color to a CMYK mix of 100, 60, 40, 40. Of course Publisher's handling of spot colors makes this a pain as well if the document wasn't designed as a spot color file from the beginning.

Good Luck
Shawn

The GDI in Windows is used only for NON-Postscript devices, in that case all file elements are rasertized and converted to sRGb however in the case of a postscript driver, whgich is required for Distiller all native colors are supported, RGB, CMYK and N color space.

My concern is to get the propper version of MS Pub so the dilogs instructions are correct for this person. Most likely what's happening as MS Pub is not color managed application some type of conversion is happening either when the PDF is created or when it's being opened at the service provider.