PDF/x Newspaper display advertising

[rdale]

My company is gearing up to produce print Display (retail) Ads for newspapers around the US. We are currently setting up a workflow. We will be using Mac OSX computers, with Adobe CS3 and possibly QuarkXpress 7. We are preferring Adobe InDesign CS3 over QuarkXpress at this time.
Should we be printing a postscript file out of the layout application, which would then be converted to a PDF file using Acrobat Distiller 8, using watched folders (press quality or PDF/x1-a), or can we just export a PDF/x1-a file directly out of InDesign or Quark? Which method is preferred for the newspaper industry in general?
Being familiar to an extent with Distiller and Distiller joboptions, can we use a single joboption setting for newspapers or do we need custom settings for each newspaper? We may be working with more than 50 individual newspapers each week.
We plan on using SWOP, SNAP and Gracol standards in our workflow.

RogerD

 

[Colorblind]

From my experience (I'm supplying files to magazines and newspapers on a daily base), I can tell you that dealing with newspapers has nothing to do with dealing with magazines. When dealing with magazines, you can almost always just export as PDFX-1a straight from InDesign and they will take your file and process it without problem (and if there is a problem they can fix, you'll probably never gonna hear about it). If something's really wrong, there's usually plenty of time for them to contact you, tell you what's wrong so you can supply them back a new file without missing the deadline. Newspapers on the other hand usually rely on highly automated workflows (such as OneVision Asura) and, depending how it's been configured, can either take your perfectly normal PDFX-1a and let it go through without problem, bounce it or try to fix it and turn your ad into a total mess. That OneVision Asura system, as good it can be for newspapers, can do very tricky things like removing / applying unwanted overprints, change all your color because PDF output intent wasn't the one the system was expecting, and so on. Other newspapers will only take PDFs with outlined text. Some others want you to take the ps to Distiller route even if you use InDesign (why? I don't know!) Also, I've been dealing more often with unskilled staff from newspapers than from magazines (maybe it's me that's unskilled, who knows?), like that newspaper guy who rasterized my PDF in Photoshop because he thought that these light thin lines in the PDF (atomic regions) were from a corrupted file. Or this other guy laying out his newspaper in Corel Draw who proposed to screen capture my PDF in Acrobat Reader because he couldn't place the PDF in Corel. So I suggest you start by gathering all of your newspapers specs and make an average PDF preset and expect it to change over time. Stick to InDesign and don't waste your time with Quark. Your "SWOP, SNAP and Gracol standards" point is a good one. Check with each newspapers, I had an issue with one newspaper whose Asura system slaughtered my ad's color because it didn't have the 'ISOnewspaper26v4.icc" profile as output intent. So these guys were not using SNAP standard. Sorry for ranting but I still hope it helps. Good luck.

 

[rich apollo]

Most of the time you can export directly from the app, but these files can still cause a RIP to react badly. Distiller still creates the most problem-free PDFs from a print perspective. I don't think newspapers, in general, tend to upgrade as rapidly as other parts of the print market - so Distilling would be the safest bet. Contact as many of the players as you can, rather than taking our words on it, though.

If you're going out to newspapers, then SWOP and GRACoL are not applicable standards at all. For cold-set you have SNAP (SNAP/CGATS TR002) or IFRA30 in the US. Internationally there is IFRA26, IFRA28, and JCN2002 (Japan).

For heat-set there is FOGRA42.

You can get info on these at: CMYK Characterization data

 

[abc]

Training

Training

Hi Colorblind

can you contact me off topic and name name, we have a very good training and support program - so we can offer assistance if we know who needs help

 

[Colorblind]

Sure I will, can even supply you files if you want. Even submitted files in the past to one of your field engineer.

 

[maxon]

Better train people and risk they leave - than do nothing and risk they stay.

Yup, well said.

 

[cjwworld]

I have been in the Newspaper Business for over 22 years and I do know that export PDF directly out of Quark is a bad idea. Since we are primarily Quark-Based, we create an postscript file then distill into PDF. I also manage the commercial side, where we print surrounding Newspapers, circulars, inserts, etc and our commercial clients use InDesign. If you output directly out of ID, then you will do fine, since ID uses the same 'engine' as distiller does. I prefer ID, it has less problems when it comes to PDF. It handles Transparencies better.

 

[cjwworld]

I also receive a lot of PDF that doesn't have any PDF/x intent. I do use PItstop to render an PDF/x that is tailored to the newspaper printing. We go thru preflight and render PDF/x then send to RIP

 

[PrepressDan]

I have been in the Newspaper Business for over 22 years and I do know that export PDF directly out of Quark is a bad idea. Since we are primarily Quark-Based, we create an postscript file then distill into PDF. I also manage the commercial side, where we print surrounding Newspapers, circulars, inserts, etc and our commercial clients use InDesign. If you output directly out of ID, then you will do fine, since ID uses the same 'engine' as distiller does. I prefer ID, it has less problems when it comes to PDF. It handles Transparencies better.

I couldn't agree with cjwworld more. Even with quark 8 you are better printing postscript. With InDesign you are better to export PDF 1.4 if you have workflow and rip that will honor transparencies properly. We use EskoArtworks Odystar. Its a pretty nice Native PDF workflow. We have a distiller hooked up to it for all of our quark files.

 

[cjwworld]

I couldn't agree with cjwworld more. Even with quark 8 you are better printing postscript. With InDesign you are better to export PDF 1.4 if you have workflow and rip that will honor transparencies properly. We use EskoArtworks Odystar. Its a pretty nice Native PDF workflow. We have a distiller hooked up to it for all of our quark files.

also as a sidenote, make sure you do not save PDF higher than 1.5 since alot of RIPs cannot handle it, it will come up with a postscript error