Color separation when exporting a PDF

[tranceplantt]

It's been driving me nuts, ADOBE seems to have forgotten about color separation when using the export to PDF method.  Even quark has this option.

Anyway I was hoping to know if there is a way that I don't know.

Cheers

[Daniel Flavin]

It's not a common requirement with modern workflows.

Your best (PC) option would be to Print to Adobe PDF printer.

I'm assuming you need Separations which would be available in the Output tab.

[tranceplantt]

I looked in the output tab, but it doesn't work.

[Daniel Flavin]

Do you have the Adobe PDF Printer installed? (Note that the PDF Printer will use the current Quality/Options as set in it's Preferences.)

Do you have any Postscript Printer installed? (If so, select Postscript File for Printer. Select a ppd which allows separations. Note the location of the saved .ps file and pass it through Distiller)

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

You can also turn on in-application trapping with this method. 

Also, if on a Mac, you can install Print To PDF app from the Apple Store to print to PDF.

[Jeffrey_Smith]

There is no way exporting. Print postscript/distill is the only way.

[tranceplantt]

Jefferey, that's what I thought. The problem with postscript is that it's getting outdated and sometimes doesn't do a good job.

[BobLevine]

You’re asking for fairly archaic things here.

You can put in a feature request but you’d need to explain how this would benefit the entire user base and IMO you’re going to have a rough time doing so.

[tranceplantt]

You’re asking for fairly archaic things here.

You can put in a feature request but you’d need to explain how this would benefit the entire user base and IMO you’re going to have a rough time doing so.

Bob, it might be archaic, but it's still used a lot in the publishing world. 

in the book world, the new trend is for firms to do books in a co-edition format. The idea is to have one firm do all the work (normally in english). But then other firms from other countries and other languages will simply send a PDF of the text ONLY without the colors (cmyk).  So when I export the PDF I only need ONE color. I do not wish to export the whole CMYK.

Do you understand where I am getting from.

So in simplified terms.  The printer has 4 plates for the colours of the book and will simply change a 5th plate to the desired language.

5000 copies

CMYK plates

5th plate: german text

10 000 copies

French

exactly the same CMYK plates as german

5th plate: switch to the french plate

50 000 copies

English

exactly the same CMYK plates as german

5th plate: switch to the english plate

and so on....

The cost is greatly reduced for everyone, but we need an option to export the TEXT only.

You will simply say, but have the text in a separate layer. That is true, but in reality, it's not all the files that are built like that and most graphic designers will have the text on a separate spot color instead of a separate layer.  Unfortunately when I receive the file it's too late to do the changes.

I hope I make sense, english is not my first language.

[Daniel Flavin]

It's still outdated workflows.

The press is either running cmyk or cmyk +black

If you output just the black plate in a cmyk the black plate is changing. There is no cost change aside running a 4 color vs. 5 color job. (Effectively, in the cmyk scenario, there is one less black plate)

In your multiple language document, if each language were a unique Black plate (Black copy, Black copy 2) the need is only for the Printer (not InDesign user) to output the correct separation form the composite pdf.

Even the above is outdated today. A layered pdf is the efficient method, beyond my scope of knowledge.

The question begs. Why a single pdf black plate? The printer should be able to separate colors. 

[tranceplantt]

Daniel Flavin wrote:

It's still outdated workflows.

The press is either running cmyk or cmyk +black

If you output just the black plate in a cmyk the black plate is changing. There is no cost change aside running a 4 color vs. 5 color job. (Effectively, in the cmyk scenario, there is one less black plate)

In your multiple language document, if each language were a unique Black plate (Black copy, Black copy 2) the need is only for the Printer (not InDesign user) to output the correct separation form the composite pdf.

Even the above is outdated today. A layered pdf is the efficient method, beyond my scope of knowledge.

The question begs. Why a single pdf black plate? The printer should be able to separate colors.

Yes you are right,  but the reality is not like that. In theory everyone should drive an electric car.

In the real life world, lots of firms will have their text in a spot color. I then receive that document and told to change that text to my desired language. If we have time we rework the files and have the text changed to put the text on a layer. but in reality we have very little time and simply exporting the text in color separation is just as good. 

I use the postscript, but i prefer using the export as it has less changes of mistakes.

[MW Design]

...Even quark has this option.

That would be, "even Quark use to have this option." Quark in all their wisdom yanked host-based separations in version 10. They may put it back in due to popular request/demand. Only the Shadow knows. I quite often use QXP 9.x for making the seps for a couple local screen printers when the jobs aren't basic vector art done in CorelDraw.

Mike

[tranceplantt]

That would be, "even Quark use to have this option." Quark in all their wisdom yanked host-based separations in version 10. They may put it back in due to popular request/demand. Only the Shadow knows. I quite often use QXP 9.x for making the seps for a couple local screen printers when the jobs aren't basic vector art done in CorelDraw.

MW

I know the color separation has been removed in Quark, but in printing.  It's still available in the export option. 

Using the export method in quark, you can select the colour you want to export.  That's a beautiful thing. That's about the only thing good in that program.... anyway back to indesign

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

On behalf of Adobe ...

Adobe applications including InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop intentionally omitted the capability of initiating a pre-separated PDF workflow. Although one could hack together a pre-separated PDF file by producing PDF via distillation of PostScript (another workflow that we at Adobe most strongly discourage), the concept behind modern PDF publishing workflows is to leave final form content at the highest level of abstraction until it needs to be rendered, whether that rendering is on screen (an inherently RGB device), to 4 colorant CMYK process printing, or high fidelity printing using traditional CMYK colorants plus other colorants such as bright green and orange or light cyan and light magenta as well.

Once you pre-separate PDF, you can't really display the PDF for normal reading, you can't readily search and/or touch up, and you can't change the target printing condition. You also cannot have live transparency in a pre-separated PDF file! And modern native PDF RIPs don't work with such workflows! No ISO PDF/X standard supports such workflows either!

You want or need to preview the separations? Use the separation preview feature of Acrobat (or even the authoring applications).

If you are working with a Luddite print service provider who demands such PDF files or creates them internally, you really need to very seriously consider other print service providers.

          - Dov

[tranceplantt]

Dov Isaacs wrote:

On behalf of Adobe ...

Adobe applications including InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop intentionally omitted the capability of initiating a pre-separated PDF workflow. Although one could hack together a pre-separated PDF file by producing PDF via distillation of PostScript (another workflow that we at Adobe most strongly discourage), the concept behind modern PDF publishing workflows is to leave final form content at the highest level of abstraction until it needs to be rendered, whether that rendering is on screen (an inherently RGB device), to 4 colorant CMYK process printing, or high fidelity printing using traditional CMYK colorants plus other colorants such as bright green and orange or light cyan and light magenta as well.

Once you pre-separate PDF, you can't really display the PDF for normal reading, you can't readily search and/or touch up, and you can't change the target printing condition. You also cannot have live transparency in a pre-separated PDF file! And modern native PDF RIPs don't work with such workflows! No ISO PDF/X standard supports such workflows either!

You want or need to preview the separations? Use the separation preview feature of Acrobat (or even the authoring applications).

If you are working with a Luddite print service provider who demands such PDF files or creates them internally, you really need to very seriously consider other print service providers.

          - Dov

Seems like Adobe is missing the point here.

Read my real life need for it above and you will see that it makes a lot of sense to have this option that I am asking for.  Not all files are perfect, therefor the export in separation mode is just a time saver.

[Peter Spier]

Any printer that cannot ignore the CMYK and output only the language spot plate from a composite PDF (and trap it correctly when they do that) should be out of business by now.

[BobLevine]

You would think, wouldn’t you?

[tranceplantt]

it has nothing to do with the printer.  I am being asked by the editors and the co-editors to provide a PDF of only the text (not to mention it helps for proofreading). The printer is not requesting this (although it makes it easier for him to do it). Besides, why would I send the printer a 2gig file of all the pictures when I can send a 2 mb files of just the text?  Again, lots of time saved.

When I have to print out the text and have it proof read, why would I waste 500 pages of CMYK of ink when I can just print the text? Again, money saved. When you do 75 books like that a year, the money saved up is very real.

Remember, the printer is NOT asking me for this. The whole process is asking me too.  This technic is gaining in popularity and the option would greatly speed up some process.

meanwhile I use the postscript, but it would be great to update the export option. 

[BobLevine]

Why not put the text on its own layer?

[tranceplantt]

Bob Levine wrote:

Why not put the text on its own layer?

Ya, I wrote that earlier. It is the solution, but it is very time consuming. Remember, I am dealing with full color books that have 500 pages with a very complicated layout.  When we have time we can fix it, but as you know time is money and normally we want the easy way out.

The thing is that I receive a lot of files (mostly from Europe) that has the whole layout already done with the text in a spot color. It's the old way of working, but I have no say in how they work. Sometimes they are files done many years ago.

So after receiving those files we translate the text in French (canada) in the indesign files and when I have to extract the text ONLY, it's either I have a graphic designer spend the whole day editing the files or simply export (postscript) the text alone.  it's MUCH quicker to just output the text in separation. 

I mean, it wouldn't be such a big thing for them to have that. In the pre press world, this is an option greatly missed. You dont hear about it too much because you can still use the postscript, but i have the feeling adobe is killing this slowly.

[Peter Spier]

I'm fairly confident that it could be scripted to find all text frames and move them to a new layer, or even limit it to text frames using the spot color for the text.

[rob day]

The script could be simple something like this AppleScript, which would put any text with a spot color fill up on a layer named for the spot:

---------------------------------------------

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

    --all of the document text

    set paras to object reference of every paragraph of every story of active document

     --check for any spot fill

     repeat with x in paras

        set fcolor to model of fill color of x

        if model of fill color of x is spot then

            --move the text's frame to a layer named for the spot color

            set tfs to parent text frames of x

            set c to name of fill color of x

            repeat with t in tfs

                try

                    set item layer of t to layer c of active document

                on error

                    tell active document

                        set myLayer to make layer with properties {name:c}

                        set item layer of t to myLayer

                    end tell

                end try

            end repeat

        end if

    end repeat

end tell

[tranceplantt]

Rob Day wrote:

The script could be simple something like this AppleScript, which would put any text with a spot color fill up on a layer named for the spot:

---------------------------------------------

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

    --all of the document text

    set paras to object reference of every paragraph of every story of active document

     --check for any spot fill

     repeat with x in paras

        set fcolor to model of fill color of x

        if model of fill color of x is spot then

            --move the text's frame to a layer named for the spot color

            set tfs to parent text frames of x

            set c to name of fill color of x

            repeat with t in tfs

                try

                    set item layer of t to layer c of active document

                on error

                    tell active document

                        set myLayer to make layer with properties {name:c}

                        set item layer of t to myLayer

                    end tell

                end try

            end repeat

        end if

    end repeat

end tell

I am bad with scripts, but that is not a bad idea. I will look into this.

[rob day]

It's an AppleScript so you have to be using OSX, should be easy to translate to JS.

Copy and paste the script text into AppleScript Editor, click Compile and Save into your ID Scripts folder and it should show in your Scripts panel. Double-click to run.

[Dov Isaacs]

Adobe's not missing the point here. Pre-separated PDF is a very unreliable workflow.

And if you are using this pre-separation approach as a hack to isolate text for some other purpose, we would strongly endorse recommendations to use layers instead! That is one of the reasons we designed layers!

          - Dov