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C
cweger79
Known Participant
March 19, 2008
Question

Export only selected plates to PDF?

  • March 19, 2008
  • 2 replies
  • 614 views
Oh great Wizards,

Does anyone know a way of getting only specific spot colors to output in an InDesign PDF (without using some post-processing like Acrobat)?

I will have documents that consist only of spot colors. There might be 3 spot colors for one printing process (e.g. Thermography) and 2 other spot colors for another process (say, Copper Engraving).

We'll call these colors T1, T2, T3 and CE4, CE5.

Ideally I'd like to do two separate Document.exportFile(...) commands, one that contains plates T1, T2, and T3 in a PDF, and the other containing plates CE4 and CE5 in a different PDF.

There seems to be a property of "Ink" called printInk. I can set this to false, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. I suspect it only works (if at all) during printing.

Am I missing something obvious? I hope so, 'cause there's no post-processing step available to me in this particular workflow, so if I can't script this somehow, I'll have to go through every pageItem and make non-printing the ones that aren't for the process to which I'm currently exporting.

Thanks,
Dorothy
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2 replies

C
cweger79Author
Known Participant
March 22, 2008
Hi Ole,

Thanks for the reply. I'm used to being the "odd one" since high school, so it's not surprising that Adobe hates me and my workflow ("me and my workflow" -- sounds like a song).

Layers would be a good idea, except that the text changes from one process to another within the same text frame. I could duplicate the frame after I create it and delete the lines in each one that don't belong, but that pretty much makes the text non-editable by a "human" which is unacceptable in this case.

-Chuck
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_Olav_Kvern_
Known Participant
March 22, 2008
Hi Chuck,

Sorry, I can't think of any way to do it for direct PDF export. Adobe hates this sort of workflow, even when it makes tremendous sense (as your use does), so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a fix. You'd almost think spot color guys like us were extinct, or something. Mind you, I feel extinct on alternate Tuesdays....

Layers are probably the way to go for a workaround.

Thanks,

Ole
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