[Scribus] pdf thru Scribus vs Quark 3.3

[Peter Linnell]

Rozenn,

Please see my comments in-line.

On Fri, 2004-05-14 at 08:49, Rozenn Lucas wrote: 
> Hi
> 
> I am new to Scribus and I usually work on Mac on an old version of
> Quark.
> To avoid spending lots of money on a Quark update, I?ve switched to
> Scribus on Linux for now and hopefully, I?ll use the Mac version when
> it is ready for OSX.

In the interim, you can get Scribus on OSX via fink. I've used it
breifly on a Mac and it seems to work very well. We have a good active
maintainer for the fink packages. On a dual G-4 it works very well.

> My problem is I?ve provided the printing house with a pdf file which
> colors come out lighter than my usual file made with Quark (I have
> printed the same document but this time recomposed with Scribus).
> I?ve generated the Scribus file using the File/Export/SaveAsPDF menu
> item (and not the pdf tool icon in the tool bar) and have not checked 
> the ?Compress the text and vectorial graphics? box.

The button and the menu item are the same. Compress text and vector
graphic is just that - it does not affect image or output quality at
all.

> The image settings were set to Automatic for the method, Maximum for
> the Quality and under the Color tab, I had selected the Printer
> option.
> 
Good. 

> Now maybe the problem comes from the fact that with a PDF file, you
> don?t quite get the same image quality (the images that I had imported
> were CMJK color mode saved under eps or tif format) than with a Quark
> file but since Scribus took the images the way they were and has
> apparently not done any conversion of some sort that could explain the
> result, I really don?t know what to think.

There should be zero difference in the image quality. 

> Would I be luckier exporting as an eps file ?
> 
Possibly, but that is the automatic reaction of Quark users when faced
with PDF issues :)

It would be difficult to tell without looking at the files to compare. 
If you have irc, look for me (mrdocs) on at #scribus on irc.freenode.net

I have Quark 4 and 5 on a Mac here, along with Scribus.

> 
> I?m not a graphic nor a color specialist but I can take technical
> explanations since I have sound people around me ! So, just throw your
> ideas.
> 
> Thank you
> 

I would ask your printer if they can accept PDF/X-3. Scribus will
faithfully produce fully compliant PDF/X-3 files. This ensures the icc
profiles are properly applied in the files.

See:
http://ahnews.music.salford.ac.uk/scribus/documentation/pre-press.html#ss4.9

and http://ahnews.music.salford.ac.uk/scribus/documentation/pdfx3.html

Hope that helps,

Peter


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