Omitted bitmaps from separations

[A S-L]

When I print seps the bitmaps (JPG, BMP) disappear. I have to print seps to
file to get them to print on our imagesetter, and when I check them by
distilling to Acrobat, they're gone.

Getting the postscript file to work is a problem all its own.

 

[°°MS-Publisher°°]

If you are seriously into this DTP work and publishing using offset
printing, then get serious and spend the few dollars on a professional
program with everything, including CMYK and PDF all built in.
http://www.serif.com/pageplus/pageplus10/index.asp

 

[websmoker]

Is there a trial from this software?
I cannot find any and I am interested.

 

[Mac Townsend]

several suggestions:

make certain that the document colorspace is set correctly for what you
want and that the images are in the proper colorspace for the document

make certain that you are printing to a PostScript 3 device (printing to
the distiller printer ON FILE -- so it does not make a PDF automatically)
should be fine for Acrobat 4 or above.

 

[°°MS-Publisher°°]

No trial, but they offer a 30 day money back guarantee - no questions asked.

Have a look at their forums. http://www.serif.com/forum/default.asp

Like all software Serif has the odd bug or two, but the difference is they
fix the bugs promptly and don't have a zillion workarounds to overcome the
bug like MS.

 

[A S-L]

If you are seriously into this DTP work and publishing using offset
printing, then get serious and spend the few dollars on a professional
program with everything, including CMYK and PDF all built in.
http://www.serif.com/pageplus/pageplus10/index.asp

I work for a printing company. People bring us these files. Believe me, I'd
rather be using Quark or even Indesign, but this is what they brought me. So
I have to deal with it.

 

[A S-L]

several suggestions:

make certain that the document colorspace is set correctly for what you
want and that the images are in the proper colorspace for the document

make certain that you are printing to a PostScript 3 device (printing to
the distiller printer ON FILE -- so it does not make a PDF automatically)
should be fine for Acrobat 4 or above.

I did figure out the omitted bitmap problem...color jpegs had been converted
to greyscale using Publisher. I changed them in Photoshop to an actual
greyscale, and learned that the color on them must be set to "automatic" to
have them appear in my postscript file. This is a two-color job, and I had
the spot colors set correctly...evidently the "automatic" makes the greyscale
part of the black plate where "greyscale" does not.

As far as using the PS files themselves (downloading them to a hot folder on
our Agfa AccuSet1000), we get numerous postscript errors by downloading them
directly. Even printing the distilled PDF from a Mac directly to the
imagesetter gives us typographical weirdness (letters skipping or running
into each other).

So far our workaround has been to create a PDF from the PS file, export the
PDF into an EPS file, and place the EPS file in a Quark document. That'll
print correctly.

But boy, it seems to me it could be easier. Something in Publisher is not
creating the PS files correctly in the first place (even using the MS
Publisher Color Imagesetter driver, or whatever they call it.) Quark must be
writing its own header that works better than Publisher's.

Any thoughts?

 

[°°MS-Publisher°°]

ASL if you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat 6.0, it should be a breeze
without any issues.

Never had any issues with Publisher not making proper PS files.
I would suggest you take a careful look at the PPD you are using.

 

[A S-L]

I don't have Adobe 6 for Windows, so that's out for now.

However, the PPD's in question are the ones provided by Microsoft in
response to my question to them: the "Generic Postscript Color Imagesetter"
or some such long-winded name; and the actual Agfa AccuSet 1000 PPD
downloaded from the Adobe website and installed using the latest PostScript
driver utility for XP. So, been there, done that. As a member of the PSPP, I
took advantage of the support option for that long, but of course we can't
afford to be on long-distance for too long, considering the profit margin on
these print jobs.

Here's the deal...if I save same file to Publisher '02 (not '03), and use
the Generic Imagesetter driver, it works just fine. Something in the upgrade
must be dinking things up for me, don't you think? Particularly since I'm no
longer allowed to print separations to those measly PostScript Level 1
devices.