Spot Color won't Print , Acrobat PDF & Commercial Printer

[Don]

Here is the problem and what we want to do. We print a tabloid
publication and it is printed by a commercial printer on a cold web
press. When we send the PDF file to them, they can't RIP the 1 spot
color on graphic images such as logos. The images print as B&W
Grayscale however Fonts print in color. They use an ECRM RIP.

We have tried all of the Acrobat, Distiller, combination settings. In
addition the logos are either imported from files or sent to MS
Publisher 2000 after they have been worked on in Photoshop. Except for
the commercial printer, all the images print on our local PC printers
and the separation for the spot color show up in color(Screen &
Hardcopy) in addition to printing separations. The commercial printer
can't figure it out. We are aware there are issues with Publisher. We
have tried all MS Publisher settings, RGB, CMYK & Spot. We also tried
saving the file as a generic PS file before sending it to Distiller.
We will eventually change to Indesign but learning curve time is
precious.

MS Publisher has the ability to print just the spot color by itself
and composite. Every thing on screen, PC Printer, PDF file appears
normal. The setting is CYMK in Publisher and is sent to a Generic
Postscript printer (non HW) .prn file and than to distiller. The PDF
file looks OK. All text prints in color but any Graphic image in
Publisher prints in B&W/Grayscale at the commercial printer. The PDF
file on screen shows the correct color on screen also. The Commercial
printer said he can't separate the graphics in his imagesetter.
Photoshop is used only for making images from scanned business cards
and saving them as .jpg and than importing them into MS publisher.

We are only using one color. The press people said I should use cyan
to trigger the real color. If I get this to work than I will add
another color. It is only the images that don't print but text does.
We use MS Publisher 2000, Acrobat 5.05 with distiller. The Pub is b&W
with one color. I wish there was a program that I could use that could
verify if the image would separate. Everything on my end indicates it
would but the press people said it doesn't when they bring it to the
image setter.


We are using the following:

-Publisher 2000
-1 spot color
-adobe acrobat 5 & distiller
-Photoshop

Thanks

Don

 

[mact]

pub 2K cannot make a composite postscript file and retain spot color (or
cmyk color) information. Colors are all converted to rgb.

ditto pub 2002

pub 2003 is supposed to be more capable, but I've not yet installed it so
can't know for sure.

If all you are using is a single color then convert the publication to
"single color"--effectively making everything black.

the color used in a document is, with mild limitations, irrelevant insofar
as the press can be inked up with literally any ink color desired.

then print the file as a black and white file.

if you don't want to (or can't determine how to) do this, then you will need
to print separations. ALL SEPARATIONS come out as black only on film and
should do so after the separated postscript is distilled. Separations are
not in the color representad by that separation. (see paragraph 5, above)

 

[Sherri]

We have Pub 2003 and it has fixed many problems when it
comes to prepress work and press. Pub 2003 will print to
spot color and hold it in PDF's even in pictures. I was
skeptical in the beginning especially since I prefer Mac's
to PC's. But, Pub 2003 is the first Microsoft program to
work problem free for us to put on the press.

Upgrade to Pub 2003, If your on Publishers PrePress
Printers list or you can register for it you can get them
to send you a free copy.