quark 7.31 trap issues

[doctorfoz]

many years ago, when I learnt what little I know about trapping, we were using quark 4.

if we had to make a rich black, we'd use 100%black and 50%cyan.
Then any time we put white text over it we would select the text we wanted, go to the trap information window, select text>cusom and change 'knockout' to .25pt.

this seemed to work for our clients and i've been using the same process ever since.

However, I'm trying it in Quark 7.31 and when I change 'knockout' to 0.25pt, it reverts straight back to knockout.

does anyone have any ideas about this?

thanks in advance

Doc

[jimking]

Just curious, are you doing the trapping because you are printer or you're outputting proofs for your client? If so, what kind of proofs and did they really show trap on the proofs?

[doctorfoz]

no, I'm not the printer. I'm the designer. It's a double page spread for a magazine - a 3 colour background colour with white text (times, 8pt).
we send low-res pdf proofs to the client, so no worries there. and we send high-res (pdfx print ready) pdf proofs to the printer.
my main worry is that when the magazine is printed, there will be a bit of misregistration and I'll end up with purple text on a blue background.

[jimking]

My strong opinion is don't worry about the trap, let the printer trap it. However, you may want to contact the printer to make sure they can trap reversed text out of a rich black in which most cases they can. Also my hunch is most clients aren't going to zoom in 300% and click off the black on the rich build to check and see if the cyan is trapping. Not only that, most printers including myself will ignore (over ride) files that have been trapped by the client. Our rips are very efficient and fast at trapping on the fly in 98% of the cases.

[doctorfoz]

ok thanks jimking. (i remember the number one rule now - always consult your printer!)

I'll email him now and ask him.

cheers!

[doctorfoz]

*follow up*
printer states that for reversed out text I do not need to do anything.
"You only require choke for coloured text knocking out of a background colour or picture etc"

thanks for your help jimking