Re: Stop Stupid PDF Syndrome Now
yes indeed !
Back in 1998, while I was Director of a prepress division for a gravure and heatset offset print service provider, I was ask to join what was then called the "PDF Group" - a group of people who worked for the top 10 printers in the industry at that time - forget all that was represented, many of them are now owned by Quebecor or RRD -- anyway..
with all out hand wringing and teeth knashing at these meetings with Adobes John Felleman, Dianne Eckloff & Gary Cosimini" -- I remember all the test files we gave them using with Acrobat 2.1 and Acrobat 3, and how we wanted all screamed for Crackerjack (imposition) then from Lantana now owned by ARTS - boy, we were so very right on some of the issues, and so very wrong on others - but now that we fought and won many of the things we needed in Adobe Tech Note 5188 - well, everyone gets it, everyone mostly can process this --- and it is time to take the next step !
We need to move on from this "PDF/X flattened device dependent" exchange - the industry is doing more and more digital printing, and CMKY PDFs are not the way to go...
I guess my point is that flattening transparency crushes important content - for example, if someone designed an advert - and that advert had a transparency effect applied to type - and that type overlapped an image - my thought here is NOT for flattened it before you send it to the magazine - so that magazine can then import the PDF into its document while retaining the non flattened text - you know, so it can still be searchable, made 508 compliant - rich PDF.
Of course, the magazine may indeed to a conversion to that PDF before they send it to the printing system or to the print service provider.
This is true of catalogers - PDF/X1a:2003 is how many catalogers send their PDF files to their printer (with a SWOP 3 output Intent)
But, having siad that - many of us in the CMS (not color management systems, the other CMS, Content Management System) vertical have been smelling something stinky in the publisher vertical - and like a dead fish, the head stinks the worst. The very people who have been charged with creating content are the same people demanding some of that content to be crushed. Let me go on record here - I personally hate that document creators like newspapers and magazines insist that people convert their Adverts into "stupid" PDF files, and while I grasp why we are here at this time and place (due to mistrust of reliable conversion of transparency settings and "other things", we need to move forward and stop this practice.
This is the opposite of what 508 compliance spirit is - where we exchange PDF files that are in a condition that 'enable' people to translate a PDF so the user can 'read it' if they are disabled (deaf or blind) - in addition, smarter minds would of course want to preserve text as text if we wanted the content to be translated into a local language.
That magazines insist on PDF/X-1a is also opposite of what all magazines are really about - enabling a wider audience to access the content they worked so hard to compile.
When I worked for AGFA, I spent a great deal of time passionately pleading to publishers and commercial printers that we all upgrade our prepress systems to enable PDF files to be processed. This required we 'prove' that PDF files could be created in a way that they could trust. My main mission in life was to replace the practice of exchanging TIFF/IT and CT/LW files.
This change in the industry demanded a fundamental shift in the way we created these file (so they could be exchanged reliably) - but with a focus on making these PDF file reliable for PRINT.
That was a big step, but now, it is time to make the next one.
While it remains to be seen exactly how well Adobe has done to overcome the reason why the industry created this "SPDFS" - the new Adobe PDF Print Engine 2 may be the start to recovery - at worst - this is a step in the right direction. Like most change, it will take a while.
I love to quote Schopenhauer here (although, many attribute versions of this to Gandhi)
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Smart and Rich PDF are not "Flattened"
