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Participant
September 6, 2022
Frage

Edges are jagged when printing exported PDF from Illustrator

  • September 6, 2022
  • 5 Antworten
  • 732 Ansichten

Hello, as you can see in this picture. The top is how I want it to look, bottom is how its looking when printed.

 

what should I do?

 

i want it to be smooth with sharp edges.

Dieses Thema wurde für Antworten geschlossen.

5 Antworten

Mike_Gondek10189183
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 7, 2022

What device are you outputting to, does your printer have postscript? We have no idea if you are printing to a low end nonpostscript inkjet, or separations, or a Linotonic film recorder.

 

Sounds to me like you don't have postscript on this printer. You can print from Acrobat the pdf to resolve that. Makes no sense to make a .pdf and open tha in illustrator and print, You always want your master file to be in .ai format when working in Illustrator. The .pdf format is not good for editing.

 

Brad @ Roaring Mouse
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 10, 2022

"does your printer have postscript"

Actually, any laser printer-style machine, be it Postscript or PCL non-PS will do halftone dots, as that is the only way they can build tones.  Printing from Acrobat doesn't chnage this fact.

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 7, 2022

You said "The top is how I want it to look". Where did you get your correct sample?

Brad @ Roaring Mouse
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 8, 2022

"The top is how I want it to look"

My guess is they printed it on their inkjet printer with a high density scatter dot, e.g. an EPSON at 1440/2880 dots. Since there are no halftone dots like one would get on a professional RIP, it would look much smoother. The issue here is that any professional printer or copy place will NOT be using an inkjet to print professional business cards, they would be printed on a high end digital printer or offest press, and these are halftone dot-based. That being said, they can up the LPI to something that works better... it's just easier for them to calibrate and run consistent large jobs through at 150lpi, but that's pretty crude these days. Unfortunately, one of the big online printers (won't say their name) prints all their stuff at 150lpi, so that was the end of them for me, as that's not good enough.

One copy shop I deal with can easily set their Xerox IGen to 175 or 200 if I ask for it.  If the OPs printer cannot do a higher line screen, THEN they should look for another vendor.

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 6, 2022

Ask the printer if you can use a spot color, that is what your top example looks like, a single ink.

The bottom example simulates that color using CMYK inks.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 7, 2022

Yes, the answer is to print a spot ink, but my guess that is beyond the budget of the OP. In any case, their bottom image looks like it was printed in greyscale/black and not in colour at all: the dot pattern looks more like it's printing a dark grey and there are no other ink dot colours as there should be. e.g.:

This is a 6pt line halftoned to 175lpi.

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 6, 2022

That is halftone screening.

So which color is it?

Participant
September 6, 2022

It was supposed to be brown.

printed on cream laid paper.

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 6, 2022

So you have a process swatch with percentages of inks and that is just what happens when this kind of color setup meets a PostScript printer.

John Mensinger
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 6, 2022

You'll have to post more information.

What is the construct of the element that is printing jagged?

You say "exported PDF from Illustrator". Are you using Save As? What PDF settings?

What application is used to open/view/print the PDF?

What kind of printer?

Participant
September 6, 2022

It's a rectangle shape in Ai.

I am using Save As.

Adobe saving preset: [Press Quality]

About the printer/app.

 

I don't know what printer it is, those are business cards I am printing in a local printing shop. The printer is literally bed-sized.