Here’s the timeline:

• Customer sets a grayscale image to overprint in QuarkXPress 7. Why, I have no idea. What makes this particularly messy is that the image falls on top of a rich black — nay, an opulent black — background of C40-M20-Y20-K100.

• Customer submits job via printer’s online submission service, which is a combination of Creo Prinergy and some proprietary components. Customer previews PDF onscreen in Acrobat, and everything looks hunky-dory (Latin for “no overprint”). This is what the customer sees, even with Overprint Preview turned on in Acrobat:

(Above: This is not the original job; it’s my replication
of the issue. The image on the left is NOT set to overprint.
The image on the right IS set to overprint. Yes, I know
you can’t tell that from this image: this is how it displays
in Acrobat, even with Overprint Preview turned on.
That’s the whole point of this post: the file displays
incorrectly in Acrobat, as you’ll see shortly.)

• Because the printer’s workflow is intended to be fairly automated (and Acrobat’s display is deemed reliable), the customer’s OK sends the PDF into the job queue.

• Like a log floating downstream, the PDF flows through RIPping, proofing, and on to platemaking.

• The job plates and prints, and to the customer’s horror, the printed piece differs significantly from their concept and the Acrobat soft proof:

(Above: Oops. This is how it printed. Pretty, but not
what they had in mind. Despite Acrobat’s display,
the image does carry “please overprint me” information,
and that instruction is exercised when the job is processed.
And printed. Yikes.)

I have no idea why Acrobat refused to display the image as overprinting. If asked to highlight overprinting objects, Acrobat cheerfully highlights the area of the offending image. But it will not display its multicolored appearance correctly, and even the “rolling densitometer” within Acrobat’s Output Preview lies: it shows only process black in the area of the overprinting image.

But it gets weirder. This is a fully legitimate PDF/X-1a file, exported from QuarkXPress 7. Acrobat validates it as PDF/X-1a. It doesn’t get any better than that, folks. If I place the PDF into InDesign, InDesign’s Overprint Preview tells the truth: the background shines through the image, and InDesign’s Separation Preview gives correct readouts of the CMYK values in the image (C40-M20-Y20 plus whatever’s in the image). If I open the PDF in Illustrator (just as a science project, mind you), Illustrator’s Overprint Preview and Separation Preview both tell the true story. And if I generate separated PostScript from Acrobat and Distill it, the separated file correctly shows the overprint behavior, so clearly Acrobat knew it on some level. Aaarghh! Oddly, if the image overprints a spot color, Acrobat does display that correctly. It’s just where the grayscale image overprints the rich black, or any other process build.

So why doesn’t Acrobat show (or tell) the truth? Beats me. I’ve sent example files to my friend and Acrobat gymnast extraordinaire Leonard Rosenthol to see if he can un-knot the mystery. I’ll let you know if he comes up with an explanation.

It’s important to note that only grayscale images seem to cause this strangeness in QuarkXPress. As I remarked above, text and page geometry set to overprint will display correctly in an exported PDF. And such arrangements created in InDesign or Illustrator do display correctly in Acrobat.

In the mean time, what’s the lesson here? As often happens, there’s more than one:

1. Don’t set images to overprint unless you intend to create a special effect.
2. Insist on hard-copy proofs from the printer. If they don’t look right, hit the brakes on the job. Don’t assume it’ll heal up on the way to the press. And if the printed piece differs from the contract proof, it’s up to the printer to fix it and reprint, or pay a penalty, IMHO. That’s why they call it “contract proof.”
3. If you’re the pressman, and the printed sheet doesn’t look like the hardcopy or onscreen proof, consider that this might constitute a huge, press-stopping problem.

NOTE: This circumstance — a black-only image overprinting a CMYK mix — is odd conceptually. Where the black image overprints the black plate of the background, the software decides that the image predominates, and doesn’t “add” the black values of the image to the black values of the background (or the area would be 100% K). I suppose this is because an ink can’t overprint itself (well, not without time travel).

Have a headache yet? I certainly do. And now I’ve given it to someone else; I’m sorry, Leonard.

[Later note: This has now been logged as a bug in Acrobat, so Adobe is aware of it. So perhaps it will be fixed in a future version. In the mean time, just remember it, and use all of Acrobat's forensic tools to find the scary stuff.]

The PDF is fully bookmarked; open the Bookmarks panel (View>Navigation Panels>Bookmarks) to reveal the extensive list of hyperlinked topics. Additionally, the Table of Contents is hyperlinked to internal content, so it’s easy to find your way around.

Designers will find lots of useful content, too. You can select a low-res or high-res version of the 139-page guide, and you’ll also find the CS3 version of the printing guide on the same page. Both offer insights into print-specific features in the Suite applications, and provide cautions and workarounds for each application.

I’m proud to say that I’m responsible for both the CS3 and CS4 revisions, starting with the CS2 version and building on its content. Consequently, some of the content is legacy, some was contributed by other revisers during the early CS3 phase, but the final versions of both are my doing. It was a labor of love, and I’m proud of the finished pieces. I hope you find the guides a valuable resource.

Given recent upheaval at Adobe (600 layoffs yesterday, including some very dear friends), I don’t know if there will be more versions of this resource. If Adobe doesn’t spearhead an update for future CS versions (assuming there will be future CS versions, and I can’t imagine there won’t be), I’ll do it myself.

Owners of plain old CS3 Premium (the one with Acrobat 8 Pro) pay $599 to upgrade to CS4 Premium. But CS3.3 owners can upgrade to CS4 Premium for $440 ($599 minus the $159 you paid for the CS3.3 upgrade).

The catch? You have to call Adobe customer service to get this special pricing. Here’s the number: 1-800-585-0774. The Adobe customer service line is open 5am-7pm Pacific time, Monday-Friday, and 6am-6pm on Saturday.

A Droplet is a small application that contains preflight instructions, and allows you to batch process multiple PDFs that you wish to Preflight. Choose a profile (or create a new one), then, in the Preflight dialog, choose the Options pull-down menu and select Create Preflight Droplet. You’re given options for how the Droplet will check and process files (see below): I like to sort the PDFs into Good and Evil folders, depending on whether they pass or fail preflight. (You can name your folders anything you like.)

To run a Droplet, drag a PDF (or multiple PDFs) on top of the Droplet icon, wherever you’ve saved it. Acrobat wakes up, and processes the PDFs according to the preflight instructions contained in the Droplet.

There was one limitation in Acrobat up through Acrobat 8: While you could process an entire folder of PDFs by selecting all the PDFs and dragging them onto the Droplet, you couldn’t drag the folder itself onto the Droplet. It couldn’t see into the folder.

I was tickled to hear that the new Acrobat 9 Pro is supposed to allow us to drag a folder full o’PDFs on a Droplet for processing . . . but it doesn’t work

If you attempt to drag a folder full of PDFs onto the Droplet, you’ll receive an error — Acrobat won’t dig into the folder and reacts as if it’s an unsupported file type. Big deal — you can just select the PDFs themselves and drag them over the Droplet, as you’ve done with previous versions. But it’s supposed to work, and has been logged as a bug, so let’s hope for a fix, so we can save those few seconds (as if any of us are that efficient!).

Given the difficulty of editing PDFs (even with the big guns of PitStop), I think this is understandable. It goes beyond fixing a comma: sometimes extensive changes are necessary to make a job print predictably. For example: a solid black back cover on a brochure, if built and printed as 100K on an offset press, will be anemic and blotchy (toner-based digital presses have a more robust black). Consequently, a large solid black area is usually converted to a rich black for stronger coverage. Unless you anticipate this when building your page layout, the printer needs to be able to modify the content so the job prints to your satisfaction. Not much fun to attempt fixing this in a PDF.

I bring this up because of all the PDF Workflow hype I encounter, especially in Adobe literature (disclaimer: I love Adobe the company. I love Adobe products. And Adobe is a client of mine, too.). While I also love a good PDF, I think the “all PDF, all the time” philosophy needs a grain of salt.

The core of this is: ask your printer. Seems simplistic, but never assume. And even if your printer asks for PDFs, insist on precise specs for PDF version, compression settings, and color space. Better yet, have them send the correct .joboptions file (world’s longest file extension). If you own Creative Suite 2 or newer, import the settings into InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator or Distiller. Doesn’t matter which application you use to import the settings: they go into a common repository and become available to all the apps. (If you have individual point products — not as part of the Suite — this trick doesn’t work.) Then, when you export or save PDFs, invoke the correct setting, and you’re good to go — in theory.

First, your original file needs to be healthy. Images must be of appropriate resolution, fonts must be embeddable, dimensions of the file (including bleed, fold positions, etc.) must be correct, and so on. Get the idea? Your job should be perfect; then it’s safe to make a PDF.

Second, you must follow the printer’s supplied specs. Oh, you couldn’t get specs from the printer? The customer service rep said “I dunno. Just make a PDF. How hard can that be?” Oh, dear. Now it’s up to you.

In this situation, I recommend you take the safe path and generate an easily-digested PDF/X-1a file. Yes, I know it’s Acrobat 4.0-compatible, and that sounds old-fashioned. Yes, I know it flattens innocent transparent objects. But if you’re sending a poor little PDF out into the wild to fend for itself, go for the lowest common denominator. Any RIP worth having can RIP a PDF/X-1a file. If your printer’s steam-powered RIP can’t chew it, find another printer.

I’m not a Luddite: I dream of a world wherein all RIPs run on the Adobe PDF Print Engine, where live transparency is maintained throughout the life of a job, where color management is not terrifying to mere mortals, and we can blithely submit PDF/X-4 files without fear. I also dream I’m 24 and skinny again. Trust me: there’s some hope for the first dream. We’re just not all there yet.

As you’ve probably noticed, Acrobat isn’t like the other kids in the box: its schedule is not synchronized with the other products in the Creative Suite stable. And, yet, it’s increasingly an integral part of the creative fabric, and Acrobat 9 Professional is full of features for creative folks to love:

• Object Inspector: Choose this option, then select any object (image, text, or vector content), and resolution, colorspace, rendering intent, dimensions, font usage, overprint information, and more will be displayed in the Output Preview window.
• Enhanced Preflight and Fixup Functions: In Preflight, you can inspect PDFs for image resolution, colorspace, security settings — even  text size. Fixups are repair procedures that can be applied as part of exercising a preflight profile.
• Improved Document Comparison: In previous versions of the doc comparison feature, changed areas were outlined in magenta “balloons,” but it was still up to you to figure out exactly what was different within the area (and good luck finding that one infinitesimal comma). In Acrobat 9, choose Document > Compare Documents, browse for two documents to compare (or choose from currently open files), and Acrobat displays a copy of the newer version of the PDF, with comments and highlights to indicate changed areas. Roll over a marked graphic will show the original graphic used (in a floating window). It’s really quite elegant.
• Permanent Ink Manager Changes: In previous versions of Acrobat, Ink Manager was a bit of a tease. Well, OK: a bit of a lie. Oh, it remapped spot colors or converted them to process. But those changes were only exercised if you imaged directly from Acrobat. Save the PDF, reopen it and the spot colors were still there, like zombies in a cheap B movie. Designers were understandably misled to believe that they were fixing extraneous inks, only to blithely submit their 27-spot-color PDF to the unsuspecting print shop.Acrobat 9 now gives you the ability to use Ink Manager to truly, permanently remap spot colors, but it doesn’t do it in a straightforward way. If you use the Ink Manager available through Output Preview, or via the ink bottle on the Print Production toolbar, you get the same old pretend change as before. But there is a different Ink Manager, available under the Convert Colors function (Advanced > Print Production > Convert Colors). And this Ink Manager (which even recognizes settings from the “provisional” Ink Manager) actually wreaks a permanent change, as evidenced by the “operation cannot be undone” alert:

For once, you’ll be glad to see that alert.