preserving Vector Text when converting psd to pdf

[bunge]

I'm doing a friend a favor and have never had to do anything prepress related. My question is the printer I'm working with would like a PDF with vector text, is there a way to do this from a psd document, I'm using Photoshop CS2. It seems like everytime I convert to a PDF my text is rastorized. Will converting the text to a shape before output do it, or is there a different way? I know to do the work I"m doing I should be using Illustrator unfortunately I only have photoshop and to compound matters I'm relatively new to that. Any help would greatly be appreciated.

 

[leonardr]

Re: preserving Vector Text when converting psd to pdf

How about File->Save As->Photoshop PDF? That's how you should be making ALL your PDFs from Photoshop.

Leonard

 

[bunge]

Re: preserving Vector Text when converting psd to pdf

That's exactly what I was doing and the printer said it was all coming across as rastor text. Maybe something in my settings?

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Re: preserving Vector Text when converting psd to pdf

Maintaining text as text and vectors as vectors in "save as PDF" from Photoshop requires that you NOT flattent the layers before saving? Did you flatten the layers?

A quick test of whether you succeeded would be to immediately open the "save as PDF" file in Acrobat and use CTRL-D to see whether any fonts are listed. If so, then in fact the save operation was successful. If not, then it failed for whatever reason. Again, the primary reason for failure to preserve text and vectors would be if you flattened the layers or converted the text and vector layers to raster before saving.

- Dov

 

[Alith7]

Re: preserving Vector Text when converting psd to pdf

One thing that will effect your text is if you have any layer effects or drop shadows being applied to the text. Photoshop can't maintain the Vector text and the special effects when exporting, so it Rasterizes the text.

 

[martin2472]

Re: preserving Vector Text when converting psd to pdf

i usually print to a postscript from the photoshop psd then distill the postscript, i find keeps the text vector!

hope this helps

 

[WharfRat]

Re: preserving Vector Text when converting psd to pdf

Another thing:

You can not use Faux Bold or Italic - or anything.
You need to use the actual font
or the text will rasterize.

MSD

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Re: preserving Vector Text when converting psd to pdf

Printing PostScript from Photoshop to create PDF via distillation is really not recommended by Adobe. Save as PDF is recommended. You don't want to simply save text as vector, but rather text as text including embedded fonts! Otherwise, you can lose significant quality, the ability to apply touch-up, and searchability of that text.

- Dov

 

[leonardr]

Re: preserving Vector Text when converting psd to pdf

Sorry - but this is simply incorrect!

I just created a PDF in Photoshop CS3 with text with drop shadows and opacity and it is still happily vector text! See <http://acroeng.adobe.com/leonardr/VectorText.pdf>

Leonard

 

[leonardr]

Re: preserving Vector Text when converting psd to pdf

Hello! Welcome to 2000...

Why would want to do that when you can just File->Save As->Photoshop PDF?

Leonard

 

[WharfRat]

Re: preserving Vector Text when converting psd to pdf

Also -
Save as PDF is the only round trippable vector format for Photoshop files.
-
- .psd rasterizes going into InDy - flattened or not (some say that is not true - but it is always true on my systems)
- .eps retains vector through InDesign and to the RIP - but - rasterizes upon re-opening with Photoshop.
- .pdf retains vectors through InDesign and to the RIP - and - retains vectors when re-opened in Photoshop.
-
If you want to greatly help out your friendly prepress folks -
Save as PDF
and then
change the extension to .pdp

This will make the file:
- open with Photoshop with double clicking - instead of Acrobat
- open with Photoshop when doing an "Edit Image" from InDesign - instead of opening with Acrobat where you can not do anything
- open with Photoshop when doing an "Edit Image from Acrobat - instead of opening with Acrobat where you can not do anything
as well as
being a wonderful indication to the prepress that the file is a Photoshop PDF (a very welcome piece of information)

Why Adobe has not set the "Save as Photoshop PDF" with the .pdp extension is incomprehensible.

And while I am at it -
why
does not Illustrator have a custom extension for Illustrator PDF files.
It is a pain in the butt opening every PDF
just to do "Command D" to see if it is workable with Illy.

I feel better now,
MSD

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Re: preserving Vector Text when converting psd to pdf

There is an answer to why PDF files saved (not created via distillation of PostScript) have a .PDF file suffix as opposed to .PDP (in the case of Photoshop) or a .PDF suffix as opposed to some other non-defined "PDF from Illustrator" suffix (in the case of Illustrator). Simply stated, a file with a particular suffix has to be associated with +one and only one+ particular program. The judgement call, for better or worse (and I personally think +better+), was that PDF files saved directly from Photoshop and Illustrator (and of course PDF files exported directly from InDesign) would most commonly be opened by Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader and not as commonly be used as fodder for re-edit. You certainly can choose to directly use a .PDP suffix when you save a PDF file from Photoshop or use a .AI suffix when you save a PDF file from Illustrator (assuming of course you select the re-editability option).

Unfortunately, neither Mac nor Windows lets you associate more than one program with a particular file suffix, perhaps giving you a choice of what to invoke when you double-click. And even if they did, there would be plenty of users who would complain about the extra step for .PDP or .AI files. This is one of those issues where there isn't a clean solution that will please everybody or even a clear majority of users.

- Dov

PS: Update your list as follows: +.PDF retains vectors and text through InDesign and to the RIP - and - retains vectors and text when re-opened in Photoshop.+