Printer or File to blame?

[ch34752915]

I have been creating PDFs for the same company and sending them to a printer (I assume, several printers) for the past two years and have never heard a peep about inability to print said PDFs... until this week. I received returned files and a message from the printer that said:

“The file crashed the system as it currently is. Large scale printer systems are more complex than regular office printers. When you send files like PDFs, they have to be created in a way so that they are insular documents not requiring access to anything in order to have all of the bits of data attached. (Bits of data being fonts, photos, etc. They may "appear" on screen, but the translation to printing on paper is more complex.) When you skip preflight and don't fully embed the files and flatten the transparencies, those bits of data don't always translate properly and the printer will try to "fill in" the gaps and that creates artifacts in the file or will replace fonts.

In this case, when examining the Properties of the PDF, I could see that multiple subsets of the Georgia font were not embedded and it was the Georgia font that was replaced with the default font.”

When I open the file in Adobe Acrobat and preflight it myself I get a "font name is not unique error" (that appears on every PDF I've been able to get my hands on this evening). All fonts are embedded (some are subsets) and there are no transparencies (and a separate preflight check of transparencies throws no errors - as I expected, even using acrobat to flatten the file does nothing to the font). The font name issue is because it flags "True Type Font Georgia" as well as "Type 0 Font Georgia". The True Type is embedded and the Type 0 is a subset.

As far as I am aware, this kind of "error" is not actually something that should crash a printer's system and most PDF files have this "double font" issue. It seems like it could be a corrupted font file or other problem with their system and not ours.

My question is: Do you agree with my assessment and if so, how do I explain this, both to my boss and to the printer? [If not, and there is some kind of issue, please explain a fix to me that I can explain to the rest of my organization (as all of our PDFs appear to be the same) - In case you're wondering, I DID originally think it was an issue with me, so I deleted the offending fonts and their caches, rolled back my InDesign version, deleted its cache, and reinstalled. Nothing changed.

Please help!

[Dov Isaacs]

There are two distinct issues here.

The first is what the actual issue is with the file that the printer found problematic. The only way we can evaluate that is if you post the file (or perhaps provide a link to same in a forum private message) such that we can take a look at it here at Adobe!

The second issue is the gobbledygook message you received from the printer.

No PDF file should “crash” a system, at least any system that has 21st century workflow components. If a PDF file fully displays properly on a screen and prints properly on a laser printer with Adobe PostScript 3, there is no good reason why the PDF file would “crash” their system.  At worst, such systems would give a diagnostic message if there is truly an issue with the PDF file.  In fact, contrary to what you printer told you, “large scale printing system” are generally much more robust than what they call “regular office printers.” Whether fonts are fully embedded or subset-embedded is totally irrelevant. Whether a font is a Type 1 font, a TrueType font, or an OpenType CFF font is totally irrelevant. And there is no good reason why transparency should be a problem either. At Adobe, we recommend exporting PDF using the PDF/X-4 settings without any color conversions. The PDF/X-4 settings leave all transparency “live” and embed all fonts as subsets. Unless you get a diagnostic complaining about the inability to embed a font during PDF export, the resultant PDF file should render perfectly fine both on screen and in print. (Whether your design is good or you chose proper colors or transparency effects and blending modes are totally separate issues!) Any printer RIP or DFE (digital front end for a digital printing device) using either Adobe PDF Print Engine technology or even that of Global Graphics with software released within the last decade should have no issues with these files. It is possible that your printer is doing some unorthodox workflow practices (such as opening, editing, and saving PDF files in Adobe Illustrator) or using some oddball, obsolete third party PDF workflow products from more than a dozen years ago as part of their workflow. I think that it is up to your printer to definitively tell you exactly what they know the problem with the PDF file to be and not spew Luddite philosophy at you.

Thus, if you can send me a pointer to a copy of the offending file via forum private message, we can check it out here at Adobe and let you know if in fact there is an issue with the PDF file. Also provide us with information as to exactly what version of InDesign you were using.

          - Dov

[ch34752915]

Thank you for your reply, Dov. I PMd you a link to a copy of the PDF. Please let me know your findings... I was using InDesign 13.01, but rolled it back after I received the message and tried outputting the file with other versions (as well as cleaning all my caches (program and font) and reinstalling both fonts and InDesign (as well as Acrobat). The preflight information I received via Acrobat did not differ following any of these measures. I am reinstalling 13.01 this morning in the hopes that it really isn't my error...

Thanks

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

I have thoroughly gone through the file provided. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the file. It is a simple file with text and vector graphics (primarily table borders) totally in DeviceCMYK=(0,0,0,k), i.e. black and shades of gray. There is no transparency in the document or any font issues whatsoever (the fonts are properly embedded). In fact, this is one of the simplest files I have had to deal with in a long time.

It prints perfectly fine on all the printers I have access to here at Adobe.

Your “printer” (or more succinctly, your “print service provider”) is to blame. Something is wrong with their system or workflow and you can tell them that Adobe has verified that the file is perfectly fine for commercial printing.

          - Dov

[Laubender]

Hi Dov,

maybe the PDF went corrupt while transmitting it to the print service provider?
Could that be a reason for the crash?

( I always zip my files if possible when sending by mail. )

Regards,
Uwe

[Dov Isaacs]

Anything is possible. Maybe a power surge hit the RIP at the same time it was processing this job, who knows. We don't know how the file was transmitted to the print service provider. Could have been e-mail, FTP, MOUSE, Drop Box, whatever.

Generally speaking, if you open a PDF file that has been corrupted, you will get some type file format error message from Acrobat or Reader. The system won't “crash.” In this case the print service provider was making all sorts of unwarranted accusations related to the file in terms of transparency, fonts, the phase of the moon, etc. Not very professional in my opinion.

          - Dov