Topic awaiting preservation: Quark Express and eps files - help, please!

Introduction: I'm a PC person and I work a lot in CMYK in CorelDRAW, an object/vector-based program. Often I want to print my file on a commercial press, where most firms have Mac only. CorelDRAW is useless for this, but it does make nice eps files. If I make make artwork with holes in it for the pictures (usually only one or two), I can use Pagemaker to bring in the eps file (text as curves) and then a CMYK tif. Pagemaker 6 shows the eps file with a solid white background (definitely NOT WYSIWYG) but lets me see the tif, if it's in front, as a transparent grey object, so accurate placement is easy. Once fixed, I send the tif to the back whereupon it disappears. If I then make a pdf file from this I can see the job as it will look when printed on a postscript printer or image-setter. The holes in which I place my pictures are often irregular, complex shapes. If I convert the tifs into Mac format, the whole job will open correctly on a Mac.

Problem: some printing press companies don't have Pagemaker, only Quark Express. So I have tried this operation in Quark Express for the PC and get some worrying results. Firstly, I can't place the pictures accurately, because they are solid if brought to the front, or invisible if sent to the back, because Quark, like Pagemaker, represents a hollow area in an eps file as solid white. Secondly, if I create a pdf file from Quark I don't see my hidden picture at all, but if I create an eps file, I do.
So, all you Mac wizards out there, if you bring an eps file, containing an irregularly shaped hole, into Quark, how do you place a picture accurately under the hole? And are there any other solutions (other than switching to Mac - not a possibility) which I might try? And what about creating pdfs from Quark. Why won't it read two perfectly good postscript compatible files?

Incidentally, converting the whole file to eps is not a possibility. I have seen the commercial results. Fine straight lines with the jaggies at 175lpi. Yuk.

I guess I'll be the first to say your problems and questions are a bit confusing as to what exactly
you are trying to accomplish here.

In any case I took a wild stab at deciphering what I think you want to do, and put together
this screencap in Quark here which
may be totally off base, but then again maybe it might shed some light on your dilema.
I don't use QuarkXpress that often... but I think your main issue may be to set the default text
box colour on the page to "none" rather than white, so the eps will show in front or in back
which ever you choose.
This placed EPS has the "holes" as transparent as you can see the images through it.


hope it helps
kromaZ

What you see in Quark and Pagemaker is the eps preview. Not the actual eps data it's self and that is where the problem comes in. If the application had to deal with the actual eps data each program would have to contain a postscript rip. So Each EPS contains a preview image.

Here a few tips:

With pagemaker you can use a simple trick to get the transpareny to work. By rotating the image a slight amount. Something like .01 deg or smaller. This will cause a slight increase in rip times as you are performing as rotation but not much unless you are doing may such moves. I don't know why this works, one would think adobe who invented EPS could display the thing properly. Perhaps it's a Window API thing?

I have never used Quark on Windows as I use Quark on the Mac. But you should be able to import the graphic and set the background for the picture box to none. This should allow you to see the transparent areas of an eps.

If the above doesn't work perhaps you need to check some preferences for saving eps's in Coral Draw. I have not tried Coral Draw for years. So I am not sure what proper setting are
I would look for settings for preview types and encoding. Try various setting until you get better results.

Maybe you could supply the printer with the pdf from pagemaker. Then it is just a matter of working out the proper setting and they should be able to help you with that.


jstuartj




[This message has been edited by jstuartj (edited 10-01-2001).]