Office Pro applications not capable of correct conversion to pdf??

[rjhf]

I have been trying to convert a full colour illustrated book written in Word
2003 to pdf via Acrobat 7 Standard. The full colour cover has been created
similarly in Publisher 2003. Both files are destined for a digital
print-on-demand press but in each case the converted files come out converted
in RGB - including all text and images, whether colour or greyscale. This
means that thee printed result is poor with a coloured cast to both images
(colour and greyscale) and text.

The printers have now advised me as follows:

"The problem seems to lie with Microsoft Word. Word only process text as
RBG and the image setting Grayscale in Word is a visual effect rather than a
colorspace setting. Whenever an image is imported into Word, it is converted
to and remains RBG.

Basically, Word does not allow the control that you were hoping for. When
converting to .pdf, preserving color will keep the entire document in RBG.

This seems to be the problem with the barcode being converted to RBG as
well. Microsoft Publisher also seems to support only RBG. Neither of these
tools were designed to prepare manuscripts for presses.

Without recreating your book in a non-Microsoft program, all of your images
will be in RBG."

Can anyone please confirm if this is correct? - or what can I do to ensure
that MS Office program files convert correctly to pdf for presses.

Many thanks.

 

[Og]

I have been trying to convert a full colour illustrated book written in
Word
2003 to pdf via Acrobat 7 Standard. The full colour cover has been created
similarly in Publisher 2003. Both files are destined for a digital
print-on-demand press but in each case the converted files come out
converted
in RGB - including all text and images, whether colour or greyscale. This
means that thee printed result is poor with a coloured cast to both images
(colour and greyscale) and text.

The printers have now advised me as follows:

"The problem seems to lie with Microsoft Word. Word only process text as
RBG and the image setting Grayscale in Word is a visual effect rather than
a
colorspace setting. Whenever an image is imported into Word, it is
converted
to and remains RBG.

Basically, Word does not allow the control that you were hoping for. When
converting to .pdf, preserving color will keep the entire document in RBG.

This seems to be the problem with the barcode being converted to RBG as
well. Microsoft Publisher also seems to support only RBG. Neither of
these
tools were designed to prepare manuscripts for presses.

Without recreating your book in a non-Microsoft program, all of your
images
will be in RBG."

Can anyone please confirm if this is correct? - or what can I do to ensure
that MS Office program files convert correctly to pdf for presses.

Many thanks.

MS Word has *never* been touted as a "desktop publishing" application.
MS Publisher, although billed as a "desktop publishing" application has
*never* been touted as a solution for book-length publishing.
Book-length publications require *industrial-strength* desktop publishing
programs.

Here is a link to some *Industry Standard* Desktop Publishing programs:
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=141

Steve

 

[Mary Sauer]

It occurs to me all the necessary adjustments should be handled by Acrobat.
Go here
Commercial printing
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/CH062524641033.aspx

 

[rjhf]

MS Word has *never* been touted as a "desktop publishing" application.
MS Publisher, although billed as a "desktop publishing" application has
*never* been touted as a solution for book-length publishing.
Book-length publications require *industrial-strength* desktop publishing
programs.

Here is a link to some *Industry Standard* Desktop Publishing programs:
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=141

Steve

Thanks Steve,

I am generally getting very much the same advice from my Adobe forum query
on this subject - perhaps unsurprisingly!

 

[rjhf]

It occurs to me all the necessary adjustments should be handled by Acrobat.
Go here
Commercial printing
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/CH062524641033.aspx

--
Mary Sauer MSFT MVP
http://office.microsoft.com/
http://msauer.mvps.org/
news://msnews.microsoft.com

Thanks Mary,

I have looked at the Publisher settings etc., and to be frank, I actually
felt that I got a really good result using Publisher for the cover files.
However, the printer still said that Publisher saves the 'greyscale' images
as an 'effect' in RGB (this only affects the ISBN barcode etc). I don't
entirely understand this - but it seems that this is what Adobe sees in
'Preflight' before it converts.

It is my contents in Word that are the biggest problem in conversion.

I am trying an alternative suggestion received from my same query to Adobe
forums to 'force' CMYK via different Distiller settings to see if that helps,
but hte general advice I am getting is to give up trying 'to push water
uphill with a rake' and invest in a more professional package for large press
work!

Thanks again.