Bryan,
Thanks for
the detailed explanation. I have not sent ballot artwork files made with
pdfwriter, but I was considering it. Now, when counties ask why they should not
do it, I can answer intelligently.
Mark
Mark
Earley
850 422-2100 - office/fax
850 322-3226 - cell
-----Original
Message-----
From: owner-support@gesn.com
[mailto:owner-support@gesn.com]On Behalf Of Brian
Clubb
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002
1:15 PM
To: support@dieboldes.com
Subject: RE: PDF ballot artwork
Mark,
There are a few things
that you should be aware of when working with PDF's, especially if you are
going to send them to an offset printer. As with any print job, you
should check with the individual printing house to see what their preferences
are for drivers, file formats, etc. Equipment and expertise varies
greatly from shop to shop. Some shops would much rather have you use a
driver of their choice and send postscript instead of PDF, others are happy
with PDF as long as certain options have been selected in the distilling
process.
That being said, there
are some major differences between PDF Writer and Distiller. The method
you described in your e-mail of printing the files to postscript and then
distilling the file using Acrobat Distiller is the preferred method.
Distiller is much more robust and has many more options than PDF Writer.
In general you will want to either turn off image subsampling or select the
compression method to high resolution (JPEG High, 600 dpi tiffs, etc.).
Furthermore, you should select 'include all fonts' in the font substitution
options. This will ensure that the file contains everything the printer
would possibly need for the image to print accurately. The printer may
further request color tagging or some other more technical options be included
as well.
PDF Writer is not a good
choice for files that will be going to an offset printer. It works fine
for quick PDFs out of Word that you are sending to be viewed on a monitor or
for a quick print from a desktop printer, but there are certain quirks and
deficiencies that make it a poor option for industrial printing. Adobe
basically substituted accuracy for speed. Some things to notice with PDF
Writer is that it uses separate settings from distiller. You can set all
your job options properly in distiller and it will make no difference to PDF
Writer. Also, the defaults in PDF Writer are built for saving file space,
almost all fonts are subsets or not included at all and all images, text, and
line art are compressed to low resolutions. While you can adjust these
settings to make them closer to your distiller output, Writer has none of the
advanced options. If your printer requires any of them, you will be
forced to use distiller. Also, I think you will notice that your PDF
Writer file size will increase closer to the size of the distiller files once
you have changed the settings to turn off downsampling and to include
all fonts.
If you have any more
questions about this or want further clarification, the Adobe
website has quite a few articles on Distiller vs. PDF
Writer. You can also feel free to contact me for more
detailed information.
If it is of any use, I am including the job
options file I use with Distiller here (I am using Acrobat 4.0). It is
pretty generous with file size, but it ensures I can send my PDF's to most
printing houses and get proper output. Again, check with your printer to
see what exactly they want, but this may help get you started. Best
of luck!
Brian
Clubb
Diebold
Election Systems
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-support@gesn.com [mailto:owner-support@gesn.com]On Behalf Of Mark Earley
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002
09:03 AM
To: Support
Subject: PDf ballot artwork
Has anyone used pdf artwork files generated by Adobe
PDFWriter as deliverables to a printer?
The method I was taught uses Distiller and involves running
the ps output through distiller outside of GEMS. These file sizes are usually
in the range of 80k for an 11 inch ballot with no back. PDFWriter has smaller
file sizes (approx 16K) and generates the pdf files automatically, without
having to run them through distiller outside of GEMS. Both advantages over
using Distiller.
Anyone have experience with this?
Mark Earley
850
422-2100 - office/fax
850
322-3226 - cell
