Can Acrobat tell me the ink coverage of a PDF?

[cbishop01]

We're trying to find the best way to calculate the INk coverage of a PDF. Can acrobat do this?

[Abambo]

Manually for a specific point: yes, But when I interpret your question correctly, you want to calculate ink usage for a given page. I suppose for that you need specialised tools of the printing industry.

[Stephen_A_Marsh · Accepted solution]

You can use Acrobat Pro's Print Production > Output Preview window for manual checks… Or you can use the Print Production > Preflight for automated checks:

Then there are third party tools such as the Enfocus PitStop Pro plug-in for Acrobat Pro that can also report on ink used.

Here are a couple of very simple sample files and their matching reports:

Dropbox - PitStop Ink Reports.zip

Of note is that as these reports are based on surface area and ink coverage, the unprinted “white space” in a PDF file can affect the reported values. You may note that the only difference between the two test files is that the printed area is the same, but the second file has white space equal to the inked area, which effectively halves the reported in values, even though at the object level the ink use has not changed.

[cbishop01]

It looks like i'll need pitstop. that is exactly what i'm needing. thank you so much