*** From the Archives ***
This article is from October 22, 2008, and is no longer current.
I was too clever for my publisher and print shop
So I just got a note from the production manager for my ID CS4 VQS book.
They had some problems with an image on a page that they said they couldn’t convert to greyscale.
There are two strange things about this.
First, the image was already greyscale, so they shouldn’t have had to convert it.
Second, the image was a PDF with layers that were created from an ID file.
The problem was that I used layer overrides to show different aspects of the layers.
I suspect that this PDF with layers was confusing the print shop.
However, I realized that I had also been too clever for my own work.
When I exported the PDF with layers from ID, I neglected to save that original ID file. Therefore when I needed to change things for the print shop I had problems in that I only had the PDF.
While I do own Recosoft’s PDF2ID, I forgot all about it.
So I ended up rasterizing the PDF layers by exporting them as TIFFs from the document. (Arrggghhh!)
But the moral of the story is, “SAVE YOU ORIGINAL ID FILES” if you use them to place PDFs in other work.
And the wish list of the story is, I want a button in the Export as PDF dialog box for CS5 that says “Maintain original ID file editability.”
That would avoid the problem entirely!
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>But the moral of the story is, ?SAVE YOU ORIGINAL ID FILES? if you use them to place PDFs in other work.
That’s stating the bloody obvious, isn’t it
You can conver to grayscale in Acrobat
Open Acro 8. The file can contain any combination of the usual suspects, cmyk, spot and rgb.
Advance>PrintProduction>Preflight
PDF Fixups (pointy trianlge next to it)
Convert to Grayscale
Execute
At least that’s how I handle em. But surprised a little that the printer doesn’t have a grayscale RIP profile.
Ah well, you got it all sorted anyways.
Hmm, I save all my work files (all my files in fact) for a minimum of five years. Hard drives are dirt cheap anymore, no reason to have to delete client/work files, or really any file for that matter.
I understand there are occasions when you wouldn’t save the files. Recently someone scanned in some letterhead pages and asked if I could drop a logo onto it. So I did. I did it in InDesign, outputted to PDF and never bothered saving the InDesign file. There were a few letterheads and I didn’t save the InD files.
And there’s been other occasions, but sometimes you just don’t need to save all your work. But sometimes it comes back to bite you, and it happens.
I save everything, and tend to have multiple versions as I make progress on projects.
*knock on wood* I have yet to lose a file I needed that wasn’t either for a customer that hadn’t shown up for over 4 years (it still amazes me how some companies can order 500 sheets of stationary only once every 4 years and not need anything else) or due to them telling me it was a one-off and I shouldn’t save the files (which I nowadays ignore and keep the files anyway).
Precautions help too though: regular incremental back-ups on multiple external HDDs, somewhat regular back-ups on DVDs (for files that’re over 3 years old, to clean up the HDDs), setting original files (photos, logo files, etc) to read-only to prevent over-writing, and opening files as copies.
Even inside files I take steps to prevent problems in the future… We print a lot of business cards, flyers, leaflets, postcards, etc. and use paper ranging from 120 gr/m² to 300 gr/m², and it was always a pain in the rear to remember what paper was used for a particular print job. So now I just add a text frame with the paper’s weight into the file (on the paste board) and the problem’s solved. Well, for new-ish files anyway.
Hi Sandee,
I use the Texas election rule of computing. In Texas they vote early and often. I save early and often. I think I have every file I’ve created at work and the totally warped brain to be able to dig them up without too many horrible headaches.
I am impressed with the way you went round to solve this problem!
I would like to add new points for solving the issue, not much by Sandee but by the manager of the print shop. I work in one of this production houses and know the many problems that times bring on. For starter, they could have opened the pdf file in Illustrator and re-saved either as ai or eps or pdf flattened. Illustrator supports opening pdf files since a long time ago (only issue maybe the fonts), if the graphic in question didn’t come up, simply open it in Photoshop and re-import it in Illustrator. The second point, to add on Eugene suggestion, is that Callas software offers a acrobat plugin to convert colors that include b&w worth exploring. A final option is to open the graphic from within acrobat (full version), flattened, save and close (not save as): it will updated in the pdf. Of course there may be other avenues that can be explored, only by having the file and know the output, including the hardware used. I hope this could help.
Regards.
@roland — Nice tip on saving print information right in the InDesign file. I’ll be using that from now on. I just ran into this issue this week. The print house was able to find out for me, but having right in the file would save a few calls and time.
I believe CS4 has enhanced Notes capabilities, hopefully we’ll be able to use it for situations just like this.
@Eugene — I hear ya on not saving everything, which I used to do. but it always seems that one file you assumed you’d never need again is always the one you actually do need. I just save everything now and never even worry about it anymore.
Sometimes it’s not even the clients needing the file, but perhaps some element I created that I want to re-use without re-creating everything from scratch.