is it quark or me...

[emel]

We just got an ad sample back from the publication.

Their mechanicals asked for a high res PDF. I output our ad as a PDF from InDesign CS3 using the default "for press" settings. My ad contained one drop shadow. The drop shadow looked fine in acrobat and on my match proof (from our laser printer and from my ink jet).

When we saw the ad inside the publication the drop shadow has become a big black box. I called their design dept and their designer said it looked fine until it was placed in Quark and doesn't know why the drop shadow became a box.

I am guessing it is a flattener setting? Should I have rasterized the drop shadow (in ID or Acro) before I sent it? or should they have had the sense to catch it and figured out what their RIP could or could not do?

[Kool]

We just got an ad sample back from the publication.

Was it printed? If so it would seem to me they owe you another ad. Their pre-press should have caught it.

[emel]

Ya it went to print. We're working on getting another placement. I am just pissed. They should have caught that.

I have a question for the RIP masters around here. Should I just go ahead and flatten the heck out of my PDFs before sending? It seems like their designers should know their RIP capibilities and use the flattening controls in acrobat or whatever app they are using.

[jimking]

I wouldn't. Quark is notorious for its lack of support for imported pdfs. I bet they used a older version of Quark and I only mean as far back as Quark 6.5, which isn't that old. Version 7 and up are pretty good at placed pdfs but not perfect. This company should use Indesign for placed pdfs. By the way I bet there was nothing wrong with your pdf. Maybe supplying them with a EPS would have been a little friendlier placed into Quark.

[doubting_thomas]

I wouldn't. Quark is notorious for its lack of support for imported pdfs. I bet they used a older version of Quark and I only mean as far back as Quark 6.5, which isn't that old. Version 7 and up are pretty good at placed pdfs but not perfect. This company should use Indesign for placed pdfs. By the way I bet there was nothing wrong with your pdf. Maybe supplying them with a EPS would have been a little friendlier placed into Quark.
Ditto that.

[emel]

The magazine's "designer" called me back and apparently doesn't know anything about prepress. She told me to look at my color separations in acrobat and to "fix them." (not sure what "them" she was talking about ). Not that the color separations has anything to do with the drop shadow.

She said next time her printer will trouble shoot the problem. lol.

[steve2112]

I work in a print shop and everything i create to send to larger places and when i work with my own stuff i always save all pdfs a pdf x1a. This flattens all images based on the print worthy settings. It converts all pics to CMYK if color management is going and it embed all the subset fonts. I change the subset box to 0% so it puts the whole font in. It also preserves all spot colors. This is what i give printers and it should always work.

Quark can be a PITA with pdf especially 6.1 and below but it should be fine. If it prints wrong i feel its the printers fault as you have supplied everything perfectly. The flattener in indesign is great and very easy to work with.

Also come to think of it is that sometimes Indesign has problems with shadows made in it in versions cs2 and below especially when they are made with spot colors but this doesn't sound like your problem. I ran into a problem like that once and i made my own drop shadows and place them in on a new indesign layer.

steve

[Broacher]

One trick I've taught many composing room staffers is to use Acrobat to open the PDF and resave it as a low-level EPS for placement into older layout apps-- even PageMaker. In a postscript kind of way, that's what PDFX-1a does anyhow--flattens and simplifies things back to Acrobat 4, but it's still a better bet to go to EPS for these older versions.

[emel]

thanks. for the next go round I will either send them an eps or a pdfx-1a

[steve2112]

i would have to argue against that in some ways. an .eps file may or may not contain all the font information. I have sent a few jobs out to other printers years ago when i first started as eps because i was taught that at school and they printed with the wrong font or with the beloved courier. It sucked and cost money to replace. The defacto standard really for sending a file to printers is a pdfx1a or the native files collected or packaged accordingly. I do understand why like you said you would use eps but really if you are the ones sending a job the printer should be able to handle a pdfx1a hands down no problems.

If you are going to use eps files just create in indesign and do an export as eps and that will save each page as an eps. I wouldn't make a pdf then go to acrobat then make an eps. it would just take to much time.