Export to PDF with Colour Separation

On behalf of Adobe …

Although back in the late 1990s (yes, 20 years ago), pre-separated was not uncommon, it has long been a highly-deprecated workflow and was already falling out of disfavor when InDesign 1.0 was initially released. The death knell to such workflows was dealt by the additions of ICC color management and especially live transparency to the PDF specification back with PDF 1.4 (with Acrobat 5). Native PDF RIPs and DFEs (Digital Front Ends for digital printers) are optimized to take versions PDF 1.5 and above with ICC color management (keeping color in its original ICC-based RGB color spaces where appropriate such as for photographic images and much vector artwork) and live transparency, both of which are integral to PDF/X-4 (and soon PDF/X-6). Transparency blending and color conversions to match the final print condition is now the job of the RIP or DFE. And you don't need pre-separated PDF for extra color channels such as for either spot colors or even “high fidelity color” where extra colorants are used to expand the printing color gamut (such as via CMYKOG).

And for that matter, even 1998-era PostScript Language 3 RIPs supported “in-RIP separation” avoiding the need for pre-separation even before transparency and ICC color management became part of the imaging model used by design applications.

Thus, unless you really have a prehistoric coal-powered, steam-driven RIP from very long ago, pre-separated PDF or even PostScript buys you absolutely nothing!

Amazingly Quark Xpress has got this function.

Correction QuarkXPress had this capability up to version 8 but version 9 could have it enabled via a "cookie." As QXP is at version 2019, it has not had this capability for 6 versions, some 8+ years.

Mike

I see you don't want us to actually fix your PS generation problem. Anyway... clearly Adobe aren't going to provide what you want. However, your scenario: multiple text plates to overlay a single set of graphics doesn't seem uncommon. The more usual way to accommodate this, which flows all the way through into PDF by design, is layers.

Most people don't need to physically create separations either. Professional software does this for offset printers; color (inkjet and laser) printers do not need separations.

With Acrobat Pro you can view a PDF in color separations, and while that is at times very useful (for example, to ensure no color appears on pages where it should not, to check overprint, and to assure Rich Black prints okay), all that is needed for this is being able to view the separations, not print them as such.