RGB, CMYK, rotated pages, and PDF error

Report · Feb 25, 2014

This is a weird one.

I have a FM 9 file. It's a chapter within a book. It has both portrait and landscaped pages.

If I "Save as PDF" from FM 9, and do not check "Convert CMYK colors to RGB," the landscaped pages do not rotate to landscape in the PDF output. That's bad.

If I "Save as PDF" the same way, but do "Convert CMYK colors to RGB," the landscaped pages correctly rotate to landscape in the PDF output.

Problem: I do not want to convert any CMYK components to RGB.

P.S. If I "Print Book" as PDF, the output is correct, but all hyperlinks within the file become inactive, and colors are converted to RGB, which we cannot have.

Also, I have experimented with the Distiller setting for treating pages Collectively or Individually, but without any success.

Thanks for any insight.

Report · Feb 25, 2014

What joboptions are you specifying for the PDF? There is a setting for page rotation in the joboptions file.

The CMYK creation option is faulty up to the FM10.0.2 patch.

If you print to the PDF, rather than using the SaveAsPDF route, then that is the same as using the RGB option from the SaveAsPDF route. To enable the hyperlinks, you must enable the Generate Acrobat Data option in the Print dialogue.

Note: CMYK should only be used for press-ready PDFs, so this means that there shouldn't be any hyperlinks, bookmarks, interactive features, etc. enabled.

If you need press-ready CMYK PDFs from FM9, then I would recommend using Grafikhuset's PubliPDF processor. This allows you map the rgb to cmyk in the postscript prior to distilling to PDF. The default settings do a fairly good job if you're not trying to match specific Pantone (or other spot) colours.

See: http://design.grafikhuset.dk/index.php/kontakt/downloads/grafikhuset-publi-pdf (It is now on a GPL license, i.e. a freebie!).

Report · Feb 26, 2014

> Problem: I do not want to convert any CMYK components to RGB.

Can you explain why?

I can think of a couple of scenarios, and in #1, the RGB conversion might not matter.

If you are sending the Ps or PDF to a print shop for matching to named library colors (such as Pantone), what's important is that the color Name be encoded in the output. The print shop software usually ignores the CMYK values, and uses it's own library definition for the named color. Unless FM is deleting the color name on RGB conversion (and I've never dug into that), I'd expect the print shop to ignore the RGB values as well.
If you are sending locally developed raw CMYK, as named-but-not-library-named colors, to the print shop, then yes, you need to stay in CMYK space, or use a post-processing tool that does RGB->CMYK recovery.

What are you doing to simulate color management?

FM has no color management, so FM output tends to be a collage of local and imported objects, in various color models, without color tag or profile information, or having embedded tag/profile information that may or may not be recognized downstream. In your PDF job options, you can specify (for example) Tag Images for Color Management, in which case the PDF job option defaults will be applied-to/override any tags or profiles that happen to be present.

Be wary of Tag Everything for Color Management.

Report · Feb 28, 2014

> Problem: I do not want to convert any CMYK components to RGB.

Can you explain why?

We changed our logo slightly. I replaced our old logos with the new one (an Illustrator file) but was told by our print shop that the new logo's orange was wrong in the PDFs.

The printer's first error message was: "This document contains objects using both CMYK and RGB color modes. Ilustrator allows only one color mode per document. Which color mode would you like to use? Color mode: RGB or CMYK?"

I kept playing with different settings until the printer said I had a good one. The setting I changed was unchecking "Convert CMYK to RGB" when saving as a PDF. So I was using CMYK when Saving As PDF. I really do not know much about color modes. I just know that when I started using our new logo, everything went south fast. Switching the PDF creation setting from RGB to CMYK seemed to solve the problem with the orange in our new logo, but it created a whole new set of problems.

Report · Feb 28, 2014

The Convert CMYK to RGB setting only affects internally defined FM colours. If you import an EPS or PDF file that is CMYK into FM, it is passed through "as is" to th output stream regardless of the convert setting. That is how you got mixed colour schemes in the FM file.

As I mentioned before, the CMYK option is flakey prior to the FM10.0.2 patch. Consider updating your workflow or use something like PubliPDF to control the output creation or at the PDF end something like PitStopPro to adjust the colours.