How
should I prepare my PDFs for submission
We recommend that you create PDFs that are compliant with the PDF/X-1a
standard. Here's a good site to walk you through the settings necessary
to create solid PDFs: Settings on PDF-X.comWhat is the PDF/X-1a
standard? For more information go to Adobe
PDF frequently asked questions.
Why does No Duff Stuff recommend that standard?
No Duff Stuff faces the important challenge of ensuring that a publisher’s
intention is realized in print in a very short period of time.
Most book printers have responded by mandating a set of settings specific
to them. No Duff Stuff believes that more
value can be added to both the publisher's and printer's business if
book printers focus on tested and readily available industry standards
for the procedures used to make a PDF.
PDF/X represents a different way of thinking about the responsibilities
of both publishers and printers and allows each party to concentrate
on its core business. Why
PDF/X? helps explain this perspective. PDF/X-1a most
closely matches the needs of book publishers and their printers.
It is a specific subset of PDF/X specifications. This
article explains some of the thinking behind the advertising
industry's adoption of PDF/X-1a. Ads are the primary focus of
the advertising industry, as the article illustrates, but book printers
face the same hurdles.
How
PDF X1-A Will Make PDF Work for You and Your Customers
Portable Document Format (PDF ) workflows promise a world where prepress
troubleshooting is minimal and where jobs enter a printing plant and
move effortlessly through the digital workflow. Right now use
of PDF files (sometimes called Acrobat files) can theoretically fulfill
that promise, but most customers in the printing industry don’t
have the knowledge or training to prepare usable PDF files.
A perfect PDF file includes all the fonts, all the graphics, and has
everything needed to print the file properly. Most prepress operators
believe a bad PDF is useless or worse than a bad application file because
a PDF file can be difficult to edit. An application allows you to extensively
edit, relink new images, or add fonts. These tasks are more difficult
with a PDF.
“PDF is a like double-edged sword. Sometimes it’s a friend
and sometimes an enemy,” said Sue Byers of Gannett Offset/Boston,
printers of USA Today as well as other papers. “When it is created
correctly it can be a great time saver, but when it is created badly
(missing fonts, images saved in RGB, etc) it leaves you helpless and
scratching your head.”
What are the current problems with PDF files?
The most common complaints are missing fonts and low resolution graphics.
In addition, the lack of bleed, loss of spot colors and wrong color
space are also common issues. Many of these issues are related to the
client’s lack of knowledge about how to create a usable PDF. Basically,
in order to create a PDF that can be used for prepress, the customer
needs to know many of the things that prepress operators know before
creating the PDF. In some cases, customers and their printer may not
want to take the extra effort to learn this process, but in many cases
the benefits are worth it.
How does a PDF differ from a PDF X file?
The PDF can have anything in it, including things that cause the PDF
file to be usable from the view or prepress production. A PDF X file
limits the scope of the PDF and what is in it and makes it something
that can be used in prepress production without worrying whether the
file was prepared correctly. It is simply a PDF file with restrictions.
What is the difference?
PDF X-1 and PDF X-1A pretty much lock down the file, making sure that
all the fonts, images, and color space are restricted to a narrow set
of choices that tend to work well in printing environments. PDF X-3
and especially PDF X-2 provide more flexibility with PDF X-3 locking
the file but allowing more options with regard to color management,
and PDF X-2 allowing more options with regard to color as well as image
and fonts linking and other custom workflow specifications. PDF X-1
will be most common when you want to lock the file down and make it
bulletproof. PDF X-3 and PDF X-2 will be used for customized workflows
in which the PDF creator and the printer are working closely together
and want to take advantage of some of the benefits offered by having
a more flexible but complex workflow.
Keep in mind that part of the value of PDF is to eliminate some of these
options so that you know what you are dealing with and can be sure of
having success with it.
So how does PDF X work? How do you make a PDF X file? While it is possible
to make PDF X files directly from distiller there are some tools that
make the process much easier. Tools such as Apago PDF /X Checkup, Enfocus
Pitstop, Callas PDF inspector2, allow users to preflight and correct
common problems and certify a file as PDF X compliant.
For example, a typical PDF X workflow a user may make a PDF file using
the Distiller (or another PDF creation program such as Apogee Create.)
and then run it through one of the above programs to preflight and fix
the file so that it is PDF X compliant.
These utilities will be able to give a list of objects that do not conform
to PDF X and in many cases will be able to fix the problems and then
save the file as a PDF X file. These tools are essential for a PDF workflow,
both for the creator so that they can certify that they have produced
a valid PDF X file, and for the printer so that they can change or adjust
the PDF X file if needed.
For example the tools above allow the user to add missing fonts, convert
color spaces, and other valuable functions needed to make a non-PDF
X file into a PDF X file.
What does the future hold?
Imagine PDF X as a standard that can easily be created or exported out
of most common applications. Picture a prepress environment where you
no longer have large staffs dedicated just to fixing and prepping customer
files. Perhaps a job comes in already certified, is imposed, and sent
directly to a direct imaging press where the prepress operator and the
pressman are the same.
Where do we go from here? If you are in an industry such as publication
or news, PDF is here and if your customers are not using then you can
probably benefit from PDF X. If you are a commercial printer with repeat
jobs you may also be able to benefit. Otherwise keep watching and waiting
and some time in the next year or two PDF may begin to make sense for
you.
