Acrobat Question?

Crimson · 01-17-2005, 06:50 PM

Is there a batch process or something I can set up to break a multipage PDF into single pages. I design catalogs and the printer likes to have PDF's in individual pages. However, it's time consuming to postscript each page through the print dialog box and then distill each page.

Broacher · 01-17-2005, 07:27 PM

http://www.artspdf.com/arts_split_and_merge.asp

Another, virtually 'free' method depends on the flexibility of your printer and the time you want to put into creating the handoff (or... the possibility of them doing this?): SaveAs EPS.

When you use the SaveAs EPS, there's a button for settings. Click that and you'll see that one of the options in General/Pages is 'All' and this will automatically generate a series of EPS files, one per page (with a '_#' appended to each file to show page sequence). Be sure to check all the right things, like level, previews, font inclusions-- all of which makes me think it might be easier and safer to talk your printer into trying this. EPS files are generally easier for imposition work, so he might just appreciate you showing him this shortcut. And if he can learn to do this, you can then continue to enjoy the convenience of handing off the much smaller PDF files.

By the way, EPS export has been around since Acrobat 4, but Acrobat6 gives you a few more whistles, like printing marks etc.

Crimson · 01-17-2005, 07:47 PM

Thanks for the advice. I didn't thnk of that. Even if they are hard core on pdf's i can redistill the eps files and get individual pdf pages. I don't lose anything running it through distiller twice do I?

Crimson

D-Zine · 01-17-2005, 07:58 PM

Welcome to the forum Crimson!

What program do you use for your catalogs? and how many pages - approx - do they usually run?

If they want PDFs and you have to send the individual EPS pages back through distiller, then aren't you better off doing it page by page in the beginning? humm...

Power to the Oldschoolers

Broacher · 01-17-2005, 08:20 PM

I don't lose anything running it through distiller twice do I?

Well, you could. It depends on what's in the original, and what your distilling settings are. You want to avoid resampling, or changing compression options, and you'd want to match font subsetting, colour stuff. The list can go on for quite a while, which is why I'd suggest you talk the printer into it. Remember to mention that once they get this figured out, it'll help not only you, but THEM, in other jobs.

If you do decide to go ahead and try the DIY route, don't forget that (in Windows anyhow) you can 'Open' a whole batch of EPS files into Distiller in one go using a multiple file select (or just by dragging the gang of files to the Distiller Icon), and Distiller will just ask you for a directory to output the resulting PDFs to. If you plan to do this a lot, you can also just create a 'Watched Folder' for this operation. This allows you to drag EPS or postscript files to a single 'in' directory, and then Distiller will automatically convert them to PDFs to the 'out' directory based on the settings you've made for that directory. It's all in the help files.

Good luck.

D-Zine · 01-17-2005, 08:23 PM

...and those watched folders are great...atleast I think so

P

Power to the Oldschoolers

Crimson · 01-17-2005, 08:34 PM

>Welcome to the forum Crimson!
Thanks I hope to become a regular. I'd like to get some work off the job posting thread. Catalog isn't always so creative and I have 4 kids to feed. Do people find much luck or work on those postings? Obviously there is some risk of designer beware.

>What program do you use for your catalogs? and how many pages - approx - do they usually run?
We are still using Quark. Hearing the buzz about InDesign and may eventually convert but not anytime soon.
The current catalog is about 550. We do have bigger ones.

>If they want PDFs and you have to send the individual EPS pages back through distiller, then aren't you better >off doing it page by page in the beginning? humm
It is slow opening the print dialog box cause of all the product images and what not. They have invested in some software that will automatically generate a .ps for each page from Quark but it is still buggin'. I know Acrobat had some features to maybe get us along until we worked the kinks out of the other program. I was exporting each page but was trying to speed up the process.

Crimson

Broacher · 01-17-2005, 08:57 PM

The main printer that I work with uses imposition software that handles either EPS or multi-page PDFs. It's out there. So are plugins for Acrobat that do the imposition work for you. Quite-Composing, for example.

resdog · 01-18-2005, 08:29 AM

Just received Acrobat 7 and they have now included in the Extract pages command an 'Extract Files as Separate Pages' setting that will separate all the pages.