PDFs out of Microsoft Apps

[Ro]

We recently got a Konica digital printer which Sales is selling fast! We're suddenly receiving Word and Powerpoint files (and I fear Excel files won't be far behind)! We are totally MAC here so of course we're having issues with these files. Does anyone have a simplified set of instructions that can be passed along to clients on how to properly make pdfs out of these programs? Or possibly a website that may be helpful? I'm trying to put something together to educate the clients. Unfortunately we don't have PCs here so it's tough to write procedures! (Not to mention we're not Microsoft experts either ... something I never wanted to be!!)

Ro
Prepress

 

[ThinkBlackInk]

Re: PDFs out of Microsoft Apps

Hi, Ro --

Why do you say that "of course" you're having problems because you're using Macs? I exchange files with Windows users almost every day and don't have issues. What version of MS Office do you have installed?

If you have Acrobat Professional, you can create PDF of these documents using the PDF toolbar in Word/Office apps.

If you want your customers to create the PDF before sending you files, you might ask them to do this:

<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4d951911-3e7e-4ae6-b059-a2e79ed87041&displaylang=en>

There are other methods as well, depending on what versions of operating systems you and your clients are using, as well as the versions of Office you and your clients are using.

If you can provide more information, I'll be able to offer more specific advice.

peace,
Linda

 

[Ro]

Re: PDFs out of Microsoft Apps

Hi Linda,
We have office 2004. The fonts never look or flow exactly the same as client's lasers. We do use Acrobat Professional although I don't have a PDF toolbar in Word. I'd say our biggest issue is colors. Black text rips as 4/color. Although this particular issue won't be resolved by having client create the pdf (right?).

I'm frustrated!!! Right now we have 157 page doc ... rush job ... that's a BIG 'of course'!! ... and can't get black text just black!! UGH!

Thank you for that link though. I breezed through it quickly. Will check it out thoroughly when I get the chance.
Ro

 

[doubting_thomas]

Re: PDFs out of Microsoft Apps

Quite A Box of Tricks will fix the black text for you. It's
not free or cheap, but I use it all the time.

http://www.quite.com/box/

It may not do everything that you need to do to those
files though.

 

[Arazu]

Of course you are having problems. But not because you are a Mac shop, because they are Office files. We are a PC shop and have tons of headaches with any MS app. Fonts still substitute without warning and type re-flows. The type is never pure black. We PDF those files ASAP then attack them with Quite a Box of Tricks and PitStop.

 

[tthompson]

Enfocus Instant PDF will do exactly what you want. Very easy to use and not that expensive ($300).

 

[Vee]

If it's running on a digital printer, who cares if the text if 4c? Assuming it's a color job... And, if it's going direct to the digital printer, why even make a PDF? Can't you just print directly to it, like a big laser printer. After all, that's what it is! ; ) I used to run TONS of Word docs, Excel files, etc, directly to an iGen all day with no problems. Time is money.

 

[F.I.ImGoingFishing]

If it's running on a digital printer, who cares if the text if 4c? Assuming it's a color job... And, if it's going direct to the digital printer, why even make a PDF? Can't you just print directly to it, like a big laser printer. After all, that's what it is! ; ) I used to run TONS of Word docs, Excel files, etc, directly to an iGen all day with no problems. Time is money.

The problem would be if you are on a lease or sevrice plan. Color is 5x the rate of pure black.

 

[gig0]

They don't charge based on the amount of color used. It still wouldn't matter on color work. If it's a B&W job, you'd print it as greyscale or send it to a B&W printer.

 

[prepressguru]

Ro, I hate to say it but it would be best for you to bite the bullet and get a PC with office on it. It really is the best way to handle these files, as everyone as mentioned even on the PC with office they are trouble. We have 4 versions just in case. We stopped opening office files on the Mac when a job we worked on all the bullets disappeared. Depending on what version of office your or client has you can use the Arcobat button to save as PDF (high quality setting of course). Office 2007 you can save as PDF directly from there. 4C black type and RGB can be fixed with pitstop.

I can't believe Office has survived so long when it is such a crummy app

Good luck

 

[mattbeals]

What you want to do is to have customers provide PDF's to avoid the native files right? So a couple of things you can do.
1) Get Office 2007 and download the Save as PDF/XPS plug-in from Microsoft and then you should be good to go.
2) Have the customers install something like Cute PDF or Nitro PDF on their systems. They "print" the document to a PDF and then send that to you.
3) Get Office for Mac 2008 and print to a PDF either by using Quartz or using Acrobat.

Enfocus Instant PDF is a great solution if each of your customers would install it. But there is no normalizer in Instant PDF. So some how a PDF would have to be delivered to Instant PDF first. If you install instant PDF you can preflight and correct in one process by printing to a queue on your machine.

Quite A Box of Tricks is a good tool for fixing the RGB black issue but it doesn't do as good of a job as other tools for general color conversions. PitStop isn't necessarily better but allows for more flexible color conversions. Callas pdfToolbox can fix the RGB black/gray problems and RGB to CMYK conversions are excellent. There's logic built into pdfToolbox to find the RGB equivalents of the primaries and secondaries to "fix" them to maintain ink purity. For Office doc's there's a special mode that really does an excellent job of converting colors.

Realistically you cannot expect a large number of your customers, the corporate ones at least, to install third party software on their workstations. So you really need to deal with this issue in house for the most part. I've fought this battle and it's not one you can win. It really comes down to this; You either accept native Office documents and any issues that may come along with the check the customer writes you or you don't take them and have the business go somewhere else. That's the reality of the market place. How does anyone think Vista Print, printingforless.com and others make any money? I would bet that over 60% of their work is from these "pain in the ass" Office documents. Printing isn't a Mac only world isolated to designers (of varying skill). It's a platform agnostic business of putting ink (and toner) on substrate and we all have to learn to better deal with these documents. There's more of these documents being printed everyday somewhere than there is anything else. Every installation of Microsoft Office is a potential customer. Acquire the tools and the skills to deal with those files efficiently or kiss that money good bye.

 

[Best Press]

You've gotten some really good advice from the other users here. The only thing I might is one thing we've found helpful is that even though you don't get any missing text warnings in Microsoft apps, if you open the document and select text that you suspect is missing, the app should tell you what the text was originally. Another possibility for your 4 color text issue: I'm not familiar with the Konica front end, but with our digital front end there is an option to RIP a document as grayscale. It's fantastic when you are trying to avoid that color click charge. Good luck!