PDF Proof workflow

[FTuser1]

Okay so we have been struggling to get quality PDF's to our customers for a couple of years. Finally we have decided to find a solution. Here is the workflow we would like to have:

1. Save finished label as .eps or .ai
2. Throw the .eps into a Distiller watched folder
3. Collect the PDF and email to the Customer (subsequently the file size should be email friendly)

This is working for 80% of our files but some of the non-flattened files are causing issues in Distiller (white box problem etc). Of course our Customers don't all have Acrobat Pro so they can't see an accurate PDF unless we save each file from AI as a PDF which is very time consuming when we are dealing with 300-400 files a shift.

We have messed with PDF settings in Distiller to no avail. What are you guys doing to provide quick PDF proofs?

Thanks a ton,

Ryan
Prepress

 

[akalaray]

What part of the industry do you service? Design, prepress, printing?
We are on the printing side. All of the files are supplied to us. We then prep them and send them through the rip, the rip sends out rasterized PDFs, showing how the job will print. We send out pdfs to "Prove" the files are correct.

 

[FTuser1]

We are on the printing side

We are on the printing side

We don't use a RIP for PDF creation. Is there a hotfolder type program similar to Distiller than can create a Raster PDF from an .eps? I haven't found one of yet.

 

[mazengh]

Usually a rip DESCREENS ripped separations and creates a pdf proof from those to provide a VALID proof for customers. An example of that would be the pdf raster plugin for harlequin based rips... check the link below.

PDF Raster Output Plugin for Harlequin RIP, PDF Electronic Proofing Halftone Screened

 

[FTuser1]

Our workflow is flexo and HP-Indigo Digital not offset so we don't use a RIP for any PDF proofing. The only thing that goes through our Xante or the HP DFE are press ready "approved" files. Prior to that we just use a soft proof PDF from Distiller.

 

[mazengh]

i never used xante, but looking at the link below, xante seems to have a pdf preview tool or option that should be used for what you need.

Xante: Symphony Workflow

 

[leonardr]

Okay so we have been struggling to get quality PDF's to our customers for a couple of years. Finally we have decided to find a solution. Here is the workflow we would like to have:

1. Save finished label as .eps or .ai
2. Throw the .eps into a Distiller watched folder
3. Collect the PDF and email to the Customer (subsequently the file size should be email friendly)

.EPS (and Postscript in general) is VERY OLD SCHOOL! The correct way to produce a PDF in this century is to do direct export from the authoring application. That enables higher fidelity conversions. You may also want to choose one of the PDF/X standards (X-1a or X-4, depending) as well.

Of course our Customers don't all have Acrobat Pro so they can't see an accurate PDF unless we save each file from AI as a PDF which is very time consuming when we are dealing with 300-400 files a shift.

Another reason to use PDF/X is that Adobe Reader 9 and later will do all the correct things with respect to prepress features (eg. overprint, etc.) when it knows the PDF is a PDF/X.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

unless we save each file from AI as a PDF which is very time consuming when we are dealing with 300-400 files a shift.

EDIT: Perhaps those with more experience with PitStop or PDF Toolbox can comment on batch solution?

Ryan, If you have that many PDF files to process, then I think that I may have a very quick HACK (forum, please don't shoot me!), which relies on a few things to work...

* Do your operators religiously save .AI files with the "create PDF compatible file" option checked?

* Are you Mac OS based?

* Alternatively/Additionally - Do you use Acrobat Pro 9, or do you have Acrobat Pro X with the improved batch features?


Best,

Stephen Marsh

 

[Glenn McDowall]

Get your customers who don't have Acrobat Pro to turn on Overprint Preview in Acrobat Reader's preferences. This should them allow then to see the file correctly.

 

[PDL]

Wow, if you are doing 300-400 files a shift, going though the manual making of PDF, manually sending an email with an attachment, and of coarse then having to manually receive back an email and mark the file for approval, that is a lot of manual time and effort. One would think your ROI for a web-based and more automatic system that would allow you to upload your original .AI file would be short. Here's one - Welcome to WebCenter: Web-based project management and pre-production approval

 

[Shawn]

Okay so we have been struggling to get quality PDF's to our customers for a couple of years. Finally we have decided to find a solution. Here is the workflow we would like to have:

1. Save finished label as .eps or .ai
2. Throw the .eps into a Distiller watched folder
3. Collect the PDF and email to the Customer (subsequently the file size should be email friendly)

This is working for 80% of our files but some of the non-flattened files are causing issues in Distiller (white box problem etc). Of course our Customers don't all have Acrobat Pro so they can't see an accurate PDF unless we save each file from AI as a PDF which is very time consuming when we are dealing with 300-400 files a shift.

Sounds like a perfect place to use a script.

I'd also try to remove steps 2 and 3. The time it takes to save as an EPS or AI is the same as the time it takes to save as a PDF. As Leonard mentioned EPS is old school, and is related to the flattening issues you're seeing. Going direct to PDF X1a or PDF X4 will be much more efficient and fix your white box issue.

Adobe ships Illustrator with a script that will save all open docs as a PDF. They also have another version that will batch save all PDFs in a folder. I've attached our slightly edited version that saves as a PDFX4 here. If you want it to work with your default pdf settings just change [PDF/X-4:2008] in line 124 from "pdfSaveOpts.pDFPreset = '[PDF/X-4:2008]'; " to exactly match whatever your job options are named. You could easily make separate scripts that use different joboptions, one for high res PDFs and one for low res email pdfs.

To use just add it into the Illustrator scripts folder (Presets - en_US[or whatever language default you have] - Scripts). That will make it show up in the Illustrator File - Scripts menu.

When you run it, it will ask for a folder of AI files and ask where you want to save them as PDFs to. Let it run and when done you'll get a bunch of PDFs out.

If you really want to geek out and you're using it a lot in production you could hard code in the source folder (line 38) the destination folder (line 52) or the file types that it accepts (including *.eps instead of *.ai on line 47).

We use this script all the time on batches of greeting cards that are saved as separate single page .ai files that need to be processed as PDFs and it works really great.

Shawn

 

[FTuser1]

Okay guys, thanks for the input. Here are some answers to the questions above.

1. We are not opposed to changing our workflow from .eps (postcript) to .PDF if it helps us.
2. We are using OSX, but currently we are just saving as .eps files and using distiller. We discussed yesterday about saving all our files as .ai (pdf compatible) files in lieu of .eps.
3. Each prepress operator has Acrobat Pro 9.4.1 but we could upgrade to X if needed.
4. We have had our customers turn on their Overprint preview in Reader's preferences. Which has solved many issues, however, like mentioned I think the .eps to distiller flow is outdated and we need to be current in our process.
5. We have actually looked a lot at the WebCenter from Esko. At this point the only reason we are waiting is for some MIS integration issues to be resolved.

 

[FTuser1]

The reason we are using Distiller in lieu of the AI script is it allows our operators to continue editing in AI while their dozens of jobs convert from .eps to pdf in the background. I believe that if AI is running this script it would prevent us from working while it saves is that correct?

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Okay guys, thanks for the input. Here are some answers to the questions above.

2. We are using OSX, but currently we are just saving as .eps files and using distiller. We discussed yesterday about saving all our files as .ai (pdf compatible) files in lieu of .eps.

OS X offers Automator and AppleScript, however I would suggest using Acrobat Pro and or a plug for Pro over OS X features.

You mentioned working in Illustrator, so I presumed that your native file format was .ai and that you were saving a copy in .eps to make use of the Distiller watched folder conversion to PDF. If you do use .ai with pdf compatibility on, then there *may be no need to use an intermediate format such as .eps (see * below)

____

I would look into Enfocus PitStop or Callas PDF Toolbox for batch optimization of PDF files (however your files must be PDF to start with). Both have 30 day free working trials.

____

As I said, this is a quick, free hack - not an ideal solution. It may or may not work 100% depending on various factors...

1) At the OS level, copy your final native working .AI files saved with "create PDF compatible file" option to your PDF folder.

*2) Use a batch file naming utility to change the filename extension from .ai to .pdf. You will of course have to test that the media box, bleed etc is correct (should be for labels, which often float on a larger white space).

3) Use Acrobat Pro 9 or X to run a batch on a folder, to optimize the incoming PDF files and to write them to another folder or add a proof suffix to the file name etc. This can be done to the entire PDF folder.

One could easily set up a shared folder on a "server/workstation" which has Acrobat Pro installed, where it could do the batch processing behind the scenes without tying up a workstation/operator.

_____

Optional -

4) Another option could be to use an Apple Automator workflow to reduce file size by further image compression and/or resampling. I would go with Acrobat over the native OS X options, as Acrobat will not screw up your files like the Apple options.


Regards,

Stephen Marsh

 

[Ruby Barrett]

Pdf

Pdf

We require print ready PDF's, converted to outline, including fonts and images. Most will comply but we have the odd designer telling us that they never have to do that for other printers! Is this such an unusual request? Some of our customers are being charged extra from their graphic designer to do this, this action takes a mere minute or 2. Any solutions out there for us?

 

[Al Ferrari]

"We require print ready PDF's, converted to outline, including fonts and images."

If you require that they include fonts in the pdf, why do you require that they be converted to outlines??? And if it requires a mere minute or two, then why don't you do that for them?

Realize that keeping their business is about not making them jump through a bunch of hoops just for your convenience. It seems to me that the simplest solution is for you to change your attitude about this and learn more about pdfs and fonts.

Al

 

[Ruby Barrett]

Thanks for your kind words and help Al. I did ask for a solution as I am learning.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Most will comply but we have the odd designer telling us that they never have to do that for other printers!

True and fair enough.

Is this such an unusual request?

Unusual? No

Unnecessary? Perhaps... Why can't you deal with fonts? Software working with PDF files should be able to use the fonts in the PDF and take advantage of the benefits of having the fonts remain as fonts. Do you have an APPE RIP? Is your RIP old or CPSI only? Does the RIP or workflow before the RIP have problems receiving fonts downloaded from PDF files? How are your PDF files input into your system? Are fonts not embedded in source PDF files correctly? Do you need to open PDF files into Illustrator for "editing" (and you don't have the fonts)? Are these PDF files Illustrator PDF files or PDF files generated by some other application?

Any solutions out there for us?

Solution* - accept fonts in PDF files and stop asking for them to be outlined to paths? (*which you may not see as a "solution").


Regards,

Stephen Marsh

 

[karolisk]

Hello,
I tried this script, but it does not work. it says:
Error 1200: an Illustrator error occured 1129270854('CONF')
Line 64
-> sourceDoc.saveAs(targerFile,pdfSaveOpts);

Sounds like a perfect place to use a script.

We use this script all the time on batches of greeting cards that are saved as separate single page .ai files that need to be processed as PDFs and it works really great.

Shawn

 

[Shawn]

Hello,
I tried this script, but it does not work. it says:
Error 1200: an Illustrator error occured 1129270854('CONF')
Line 64
-> sourceDoc.saveAs(targerFile,pdfSaveOpts);

Hi Karolisk

Looks like it's having a problem finding the joboptions fiile. Go through the instructions on my original post carefully. Open the script in a text editor and make sure that the joboptions mentioned in line 124 of the script exactly matches the PDF joboption setting from Illustrator that you want to use. In the script I posted it's set to look for one of the Adobe defaults for the newer versions of Illustrator CS3 or later '[PDF/X-4:2008]' -- including the brackets -- if that exact joboption isn't installed on your system it won't work.

Shawn