Comments on: I was too clever for my publisher and print shop

By: George Coghill

George Coghill — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:04:17 +0000

@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.

By: Frank Anthony

Frank Anthony — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 08:18:08 +0000

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.

By: Jennie

Jennie — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:55:26 +0000

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!

By: Roland

Roland — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:25:29 +0000

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.

By: Eugene

Eugene — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:53:14 +0000

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.

By: George Coghill

George Coghill — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:50:59 +0000

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.

By: Eugene

Eugene — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:17:41 +0000

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.

By: F vd Geest

F vd Geest — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:00:59 +0000

>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