PDF Export Question for InDesign - Acrobat 10 & Later

[rcreveli]

In our ongoing KM1 Drama the techs have made the following recommendation.

Optimize the problem PDF's and use the setting "Make Compatible with: Acrobat 10 and Later"

The challenge is to incorporate this into our workflow for all job. This option isn't available in Indesign or Distiller. It's only available when you save as an optimized PDF in acrobat.

I think the solution is BS but, until I get something better....

Thanks,
Ray

 

[namelessentity]

Have you tried exporting as a PDF/X4? Any modern rip should support it, and it generally fixes weird issues with transparency and stuff like that.
I dunno what RIP the KM-1 uses, but this website was helpful for me for setting up our Imagepress settings to make sure jobs printed properly.

 

[Dov Isaacs]

In our ongoing KM1 Drama the techs have made the following recommendation.

Optimize the problem PDF's and use the setting "Make Compatible with: Acrobat 10 and Later"

The challenge is to incorporate this into our workflow for all job. This option isn't available in Indesign or Distiller. It's only available when you save as an optimized PDF in acrobat.

I think the solution is BS but, until I get something better....

Thanks,
Ray

I will confirm that the “recommendation” offered by those techs is nothing but absolute and total BS. As @namelessentity recommends, you should use PDF/X-4 export from InDesign, making sure that you don't convert any colors during export (i.e., maintain in original color spaces with their ICC color profiles) or flatten any transparency!

- Dov

 

[rcreveli]

Have you tried exporting as a PDF/X4? Any modern rip should support it, and it generally fixes weird issues with transparency and stuff like that.
I dunno what RIP the KM-1 uses, but this website was helpful for me for setting up our Imagepress settings to make sure jobs printed properly.

The KM1 uses its own proprietary RIP. Thanks for the link. I sent it on to my coworker. We'll give the chips a shot.

 

[Joe]

I will confirm that the “recommendation” offered by those techs is nothing but absolute and total BS. As @namelessentity recommends, you should use PDF/X-4 export from InDesign, making sure that you don't convert any colors during export (i.e., maintain in original color spaces with their ICC color profiles) or flatten any transparency!

- Dov

You would probably be surprised how many services have popped up in the last few years that promise to fix designers "output" problems because when printing a PDF to their 20 year old postscript laser printer with live transparency it doesn't produce correctly. All they do is take a perfectly good PDF and save as a PDF version 1.3 to flatten it and downsample the crap out of it. Their "fixed" PDF's are horrible. The punishment for this should be 1,000 cuts to the body with razor blades and then dipped in alcohol.