[Scribus] Fwd: PDF exporting (?problem?)

[Craig Ringer]

On Wed, 2004-08-25 at 05:58, Plinnell wrote:

> Handling PDF is highly dependent on how new the PDF engine is. Are you 
> exporting PDF 1.3 or 1.4. It could be their RIP is older and has issues with 
> some PDF features. 

Even printers with newer RIPs may choose to reject PDF 1.4 or PDF 1.5 as
they haven't properly tested with it and found any quirks or issues. Our
printers at work are in this category - they use the latest Harlequin
but require PDF 1.3 and no ICC profiles. I don't blame them for being
careful, as I understand the newer PDF versions add yet more interesting
ways users can do things wrong and it takes time to refine preflight
profiles to catch them all.

> Most likely. Only printers who have both a newer RIP and capable of handling 
> PDF/X-3 will want embedded profiles. Note PDF/X-3 is the newest and most 
> advanced ISO PDF standard.

Again, even if they do have the latest version of their RIP they may not
want to accept ICC profiles. The printers we use at work have commented
that ICC profiles have been more trouble than they're worth, and they
find their users get better, more reliable results by pre-correcting in
Photoshop using their CMYK workspace profile. I gather this isn't an
issue with ICC profiles or anything, but rather the large number of
different ways clients can get things wrong and produce garbage. As
someone who just got a "camera ready" (ready to place on the page and
print) ad from a client as a MICROSOFT EXCEL file today (*sob*), I'm not
surprised.

The printers are testing up to accept PDF/X-3 from individual clients
after testing, but say that so many people get colour management utterly
wrong that a lot of care is required. The standard can't protect against
lack of user understanding or knowledge.

> > They also say they dont like TT fonts and only uses PS1 fonts. If we're
> > using times new roman for our text, how do I make the font PS1?
> 
> Bunk. This has been a long standing myth in the printing business. *Poor  
> quality* True Type fonts do cause problems. I have clients who have used True 
> Type fonts for years in a 100% PDF workflow. This is printing a 250k print 4 
> color magazine. They only use high quality Bitstream, Agfa Monotype or 
> similar fonts.

Agreed. The newspaper I work with uses a lot of TrueType fonts (though
we mostly use PostScript fonts) with good results. I actually suspect
that a few of them are damaged or poor quality, but can't get
replacements (availibility or budget). *sigh*.

> Send your printer to: 
> http://www.scribus.org.uk/documentation/pdfs/pre-press.pdf
> for hints on handling Scribus PDF files.

Nice. I'll ask the ColourPress guys to have a look at that too, as I'm
interested in eventually starting to use Scribus at the POST.

--
Craig Ringer