PDFX-1A Conversion HELP

[Andrea Hartzell]

Hi! I created a two color publication using Publisher 2003. It is designed
as spot color with black and PMS 5753 used for the colors. The photos that
are included were converted to gray scale using Photoshop 5 before inserting
in the publication. Everything is colored using one of the two colors or a
percent thereof. To prepare the file for our graphics house they ask that we
run it through acrobat using the PDFX-1A setting. I'm doing this. . . but
getting RGB errors on every page. . . HELP!

Thanks in Advance!

 

[Mary Sauer]

Adobe has help
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/pdfs/cs2_pdf_int_guide.pdf#search="PDFX-1A"

 

[Matt Beals]

More to the point here the way Adobe approaches PDF/X-1a is to convert
everything to process color. Also, Microsoft makes everything pass through
Windows GDI which makes everything RGB when printed composite. Heck, even
the separations are actually RGB. The spot colors only break out when
printing as separations, so it's an exercise in futility to work with
Publisher in its current incarnation for spot color work when sending PDFs.
Because it all goes RGB.

Using tools like PitStop Professional your print provider can "fix" the job
to make it two colors. It is entirely possible, but not exactly "easy".
Fortunately you are using black plus a spot color. So that makes it
significantly easier. Even if you use one of the old school workarounds to
work with black and magenta you will still run into the same problem because
the GDI will always convert colors to RGB as they pass through.

As I said, until Publisher changes (or Windows does) this is the expected
behavior.

Matt Beals
Consultant
Enfocus Certified Trainer, Markzware Recognized Trainer
(206) 618-2537 - cell
(720) 367-3869 - fax
mailto:[email protected]

Come visit me at:
http://www.mattbeals.com
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