Hey, Mac Townsend!

[spncity]

Hi Mac and others I've seen answering questions on MS Publisher:

Please give a quick tip to one who is trying hard...

Trying to have a short word (or a portion of a large script-type capital
letter as a design element) print in a 10% gray tone appearing on a page
"behind" a 100% black font paragraph (quotation) in a text box with a line
border. I read that I'm supposed to use tint....but...

The page appears fine on the screen, but the 10% tint prints as black on the
printer.

Any ideas?

Thank you!

spncity

 

[Mac Townsend]

Using Pub 2003 on W2K I get the same result (to an HP 6L) and I don't know
why. I've changed the colorspace from RGB to Greyscale to Spot Color and
have tried printing as RGB or Greyscale composite and get the same result:
the grey letter prints out solid black even though the color is set to a
shaded value. I tried it with black as sport color and i tried it with a
custom color (a grey...rgb 222,222,222). Still comes out black.

To a PostScript printer it works OK.

Word Art seems to work, though. Try that as a work around.

 

[spncity]

Thank you, Mac.

I figure if you cain't do it, cain't nobody do it !

But....further....do you know whether, if it looks "right" on the screen --
can it be saved as a .pdf file and sent to a print-on-demand vendor where it
"WOULD" come out right??

I guess that's my next question. I'm trying to do this simple gift book and
I need to end up with a .pdf file in a decent resolution and "Output Ready."
Can I go from MS Pub 2002 to .pdf. We're getting the software from Adobe to
"make" .pdf files...

spncity
P.S. I like your web page.

 

[Mac Townsend]

Because I was able to print to a PostScript laser and have the screened
charavters come out right, I'd assume that printing to a PostScript file
then distilling it would work as well.

Nice thing about it...you can check the PDF!

The standard installation of Acrobat installs a printer named Distiller. The
standard way that this Distiller is set up is that when you print to it
several things happen: (1) it makes a postscript file (in the
C:\WINNT\system32\spool\PRINTERS -- for Win2K. Prolly similar for XP) (2) it
starts up Distiller and (3) feeds that file to distiller which then drop the
PDF into C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat X.0\Distillr\Data (I think it goes
in the Data folder--not positive). In the printer properties for the
Distiller printer you will see it (on the Ports tab in W2K or XP) as being
connected to a "PDF Port". And that C:\Program.... location is where the PDF
port is set up...meaning you will have to go there to get your PDF. Ways
around that in a moment.

You MUST make your settings in Distiller before you print to it. Distiller's
settings are called Job Options. The one called "Press" is real close to
what it ought to be. Make sure you don't use "ebook" or "screen" or even
"print"

If you don't want to dive 5 layers deep to retreive the PDF file, here are a
couple ways to avoid it..

1) make a shortcut to that folder on your desktop. click it and you are
there.

2) in Printer Properties > Ports click "make new port" and select PDF port.
You can then make this new PDF port put the pdf file wherever you want it.
then reassign the Distiller conection to this port.

3) change the port to "on file" and then what happens is when you print to
distiller it will create a PostScript file. You will then need to load
Distiller and set it to work yourself. This is the procedure I use because I
have not found the PDF port method to be reliable. Tip: With Distiller open,
set up watched folders. Tell it to put these watched folders in the root
directory...that is tell it to put them on C:\ or D:\ and it will then make
a folder named D:\in and D:\out. If you then tell distiller pritner to put
the PostScript file in D:\in and you load distiller (or have it loaded)
Distiller will automatically make the PDF and put it in the D:\out folder.

 

[Mike Koewler]

Mac,

My workflow is slightly different, and apparently my options. Each time
I create a pdf, I am prompted for a file name (with the name of the file
and its directory file being the default). For instance, if I have a
file called Page9 in the March 3 directory, if I print to Distiller, I
get the default file name of \\March 3\Page9.pdf

For simple jobs, I never bother creating a PS file and distilling. I've
never seen a benefit in doing otherwise.

Mike

 

[spncity]

Whew!

Am saving these comments to print out for future reference. I really
appreciate you guys taking the time to offer explanations and that you speak
s-l-o-w-l-y because it really is a foreign language.

I have to keep the project costs down in order to keep the product within
reach of nonprofit organizations. Thus the attempt to scale the learning
curve

spncity

 

[Mac Townsend]

I "shorted out" the automatic PDF creation in Acro 4 some time ago because
it kept crapping out on large documents and because I didn't want to go
diving for files in the 5th level down on the C drive. (and hadn't figured
out changing the PDF port location at that time).

Perhaps newer versions are smarter about where they put the PDF file.

I don't trust much file automation. I'd rather get my hands dirty, so to
speak, and monitor each step. I don't, for instance, send PS to the rip for
automatic ripping and imaging (though I could configure it to do so) because
I want to preview each file myself.

 

[Mike Koewler]

Mac,

I'm not a printer but I would love to find a program that could show how
a file would look when being sent to a RIP.

Alas, there are no fail-safe operations if one has to rely on others. I
sent a CMYK pdf to my printer, he was told that page was supposed to be
color; for reasons unknown they dropped it into a grayscale folder and
ran it from there. They use OneVision's Asura but no one bothered to
look at the file or read the log. Not that that made my client feel
better. :-(

Mike

 

[Mac Townsend]

Most rips these days include a "preview" mode. I preview about 90% of my
jobs...but if I were cranking out dozens of jobs a day (instead of just a
couple) I'd probably reduce the percentage.

Acrobat is close but doesn't wear the crown.

You can buy a limited version of a Harlequin rip paired with an Epson 2200
printer for somethign just over a grand or so...but if your printer's not
using a Hqn rip then it may be pointless.

I use a BestColor package to proof files (taking preseparated and
recombinieng them or handling composite and sending to an inkjet calibrated
to press). The rip in it was not interpreting some Corel Draw fiels the same
way my Hqn was, so now I use the Hqn to make a cmyk composite TIFF and send
that to the Best Color...where it manages the colro and all that. Comes out
pretty darn close and at $12 per is a hellovqa lot cheaper than a Color Key
or Matchprint. I don't even offer Color Key or Matchprint any more!

 

[Mike Koewler]

Mac,

Since I don't do any printing here (I sent my pdf files a 100 miles or
so away) I don't need any hardware. Mucking things up worse is that I
have only have one or two files a week that are not locked down, ready
to print pdf's.

One would think that Enfocus, OneVision or some company would develop an
inexpensive software program where one could set the output device and
imposition program and then view how it will look.

Realistically, though, out of close to 1,000 files I have sent to the
printer in the last year, only a handful were problematic. Of those, 60
percent were due to the pdf's not being compatible with Quite Imposing.
The other two were simply printer screw-ups. Once, they output a
grayscale page as CMYK (not a problem) but then TAPED over an image on
the C, M and Y films. Yeah, the printer admitted it! The other time,
they dropped a color file in a grayscale folder. In either instance, I
don't know of a program that would have helped me. In the words of a
firing squad member describing a shot he fired: it was fine when it left
here!

Mike