Publisher to PDF?

[rande]

Any free apps that will convert Publisher.
I found some but they're not working.

 

[Sev]

Any free apps that will convert Publisher.
I found some but they're not working.

Try PrimoPDF. That is what we use for Publisher, and all Office apps to convert to PDF.

-Sev

 

[buckeye]

Have you tried CutePDF?

-Erik

 

[DCurry]

I always just opened the Publisher file and printed to PostScript for Distilling. It actually did pretty well, as long as you first make sure your colors are set up correctly (not RGB, unless you plan to do some Pitstop editing on everything.)

 

[Sev]

I always just opened the Publisher file and printed to PostScript for Distilling. It actually did pretty well, as long as you first make sure your colors are set up correctly (not RGB, unless you plan to do some Pitstop editing on everything.)

In most cases we print directly to the RIP (Nexus) from Publisher, unless we need to do a bit of PitStop clean-up, then we use PrimoPDF.

-Sev

 

[GuruMorgor]

All 3 above mentioned work well enough, watch out for the "Word Art" crap and overprints. We recently moved up to Publisher 2010 from the 2002 version, seems to have gotten a little better. Still uses the hybrid measurement system that defies all logic.

 

[rande]

Distiller seems to work but screws up my back ground colors.
I know nothing about pub. how do I check the tint of a bkgrd color to change it in Pitstop

 

[rande]

I found it.
thanks for now

 

[buckeye]

As DCurry mentioned, you can change it to CMYK in Publisher or change it in PitStop. To change it to CMYK in Publisher, go to Commercial Printing Tools > Color Printing. Or if you want to check or change the color in Publisher, go to Format > Object and then you can change it to CMYK mode and then to the color of your choice.

-Erik

 

[rande]

Okay thanks for the help.
Now I have a PDF file and the colors are screwed up. They're CMYK. The pub file says they're 75% of the color. Its a pub. color I don't know what that is. I've changed the CMYK % to the tint colors but they're way off. Any good way to do this?
thanks

 

[rande]

Sorry Buck didn't see your comment. But I don't see any of those things, but I might me fine. It comes in as cmyk in acrobat and I'm changing the 5 to what looks good on screen. I might get thru this job anyway.

 

[Hopkins Printing]

If you have Publisher 2007 or later, you can download the "Save as PDF or XPS" add-in from Microsoft's website:

Download 2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS from Official Microsoft Download Center

We use it here and works well.

Hope this helps,
hp

 

[pacart]

use to pitstop to fix the colors. Also you should be able to just save to a pdf file in publisher, that is what i do, then i open in pitstop and fix all the crazy stuff that microsoft thinks is way cool.

 

[Dottiek]

Okay thanks for the help.
Now I have a PDF file and the colors are screwed up. They're CMYK. The pub file says they're 75% of the color. Its a pub. color I don't know what that is. I've changed the CMYK % to the tint colors but they're way off. Any good way to do this?
thanks

You may want to print out the color pallet of the Publisher file and match it to printed samples of your printer. IMHO, most people using Publisher are not that fussy about their colors and simply use what Publisher offers them because they don't know any better. Also beware that depending upon how they unknowingly created the colors, you may have different blocks looking the same onscreen ( to them) but printing different shades.
I work with an almost totally Publisher customer base ( educational agency) and it takes some tricks to undo the novice mistakes. If they used a Publisher template, first pull out that flask in your right hand drawer.

 

[buckeye]

pacart,

As Hopkins Printing mentioned, you need to download the "Save as PDF or XPS" add-in from Microsoft's website. I can print to PDF with Publisher 2003 also, but only because I have Acrobat installed on that machine, along with the PDF driver that came with it. I also have Publisher 2007 running on a G5 Mac that has Virtual PC installed on it and I still had to download the "Save as PDF or XPS" add-in from Microsoft's website. I'm fairly certain that, out of the box, you can't save straight to PDF from Publisher without installing a third party software. I could be wrong, but that's how I remember it.

-Erik

 

[Dottiek]

Also keep in mind that if you are using Office 2010, you will need Acrobat 10 . Gotta love the Microsoft/Adobe feud.

Publisher has come a long way from the 2000 version. 2000 was cruel and inhuman punishment to use. 2003 was a vast improvement. I don't see too much improvment in 2007 or 2010 except for an ungodly amount of useless templates of all sorts that you cannot remove. They did manage to take away some highly useful tools like the measurement block and the calendar maker.

Commercial printers may see more Publisher docs at their doors as public education entities get tighter with spending. Right now I cannot get even the Adobe upgrade costs past the CFO and will undoubtedly get further behind before budgets even out. Fortunately,most of the items coming through here are more than adequate in Publisher. We can't make it look too costly or the public may question spending.

 

[Alienjones]

The Primo solution will work on simple documents but like most "imitation" PDF applications, the final result is often unpredictable. Someone told me many years ago that no 'serious' document designer uses Publisher. Like most Microsoft things from the early days of Windows, Publisher went out on a tangent and made itself completely incompatible with mainstream publishing software. There are plenty of fairly cheap alternatives that are compatible with what everyone else uses. My suggestion is to find and get one of these programs if you intend to do any serious document development in the future.

 

[mattbeals]

Best bet is to use the Microsoft Save as PDF/XPS plug-in -or- print to the Adobe PDF printer. But be sure that you do *NO* color conversions in Publisher. Leave *everything* as RGB. Don't butcher an otherwise salvageable PDF by having Publisher convert it to a horrible CMYK space. Please, for the love of God and Country!

You *WANT* an RGB PDF. Really, I'm serious. Once you have the RGB PDF you can use your preferred PDF editor to make a better color conversion, clean up any RGB/CMY blacks/grays/etc.

It sounds harder than it is but you end up with a much better resulting content file. I do this all the time. It's not hard. It just takes a bit of prep work, and some tinkering in Acrobat. Most of what you want to do can be done in Acrobat Pro itself. Doing the color conversion in Distiller can cause unwanted problems. Do it all in Acrobat Pro. In the end you end up with better art. It's not painful. Anyone can do it if they put a little effort into it. Anyone can do it *well* if they work smart with a little effort.

 

[Alienjones]

Very sad that to get black (in the RGB color space) it is created from the three primaries and then carried in the green channel. It's the same with Photoshop or any document created in the RGB color space. Going straight to save as PDF you'll get the 3 primaries making black. You only need to be off by 5 points either way with any of the colors (Red Green or Blue) and black will turn murky. It's the reason most art created in the RGB color space never has true black when printed.

When we get brochures, magazine pages or advertising composed in Photoshop (or Publisher) using any RGB color profile, I get a signed agreement I won't guarantee black will be black. It costs nothing to download a demo version of Indesign or Corel Draw X6. Both will produce correct colors. Messing around with Publisher only encourages continued problems. Some of the quality print firms I have relationships with refuse to have anything to do with Publisher documents and I don't blame them. Copy shops seem willing to accept anything so I guess Publisher will live on.

 

[mattbeals]

Very sad that to get black (in the RGB color space) it is created from the three primaries and then carried in the green channel. It's the same with Photoshop or any document created in the RGB color space. Going straight to save as PDF you'll get the 3 primaries making black. You only need to be off by 5 points either way with any of the colors (Red Green or Blue) and black will turn murky. It's the reason most art created in the RGB color space never has true black when printed.

When we get brochures, magazine pages or advertising composed in Photoshop (or Publisher) using any RGB color profile, I get a signed agreement I won't guarantee black will be black. It costs nothing to download a demo version of Indesign or Corel Draw X6. Both will produce correct colors. Messing around with Publisher only encourages continued problems. Some of the quality print firms I have relationships with refuse to have anything to do with Publisher documents and I don't blame them. Copy shops seem willing to accept anything so I guess Publisher will live on.

Once you learn how to deal with these files it becomes easy and opens a whole new market to serve. The tools are there to make this much easier than it is made out to be. If you don't want the money someone else will be happy to take it. Many online printers make a lot of money off this market segment that is ignored because some shops decide to give up early. A modest investment in time, tools and education can have big rewards. *IF* you choose that is.