Topic awaiting preservation: printing pdfs

Any help would be so appreciated!!!

I need to bring an excel file that has been converted into a pdf into quarkxpress. Acrobat has installed its features into to our Windows program which allows me to export the pdf directly through the interface. I have noticed that when saving the file I can either allow the ?normal- default? formatting to take place or I can convert it into a
pdf-tiff format. What I need to know is which is better for printing output. I know that when you convert the files it to a tiff file it gets rasterized and breaks down a bit but will it breakdown too much? Should I allow the Acrobat defaults to remain or switch it over to a tiff file and then import the file?

I have been reading over the ?printing? forum here ? should I be using the SAVE AS
Post Script .ps feature? Will this get me my best printing results? So confused with this...


Thanks in advance

I am not sure exactly where you are getting that message? My guess is you are using Acrobat's PDF Maker which I belive is a MS-Office extention. I don't have a current version of Excel, so I couldn't try PDF Maker. From the sound of it I would avoid the pdf-tiff option, it's my guess that it converts the Excel document to a tiff. So unless it offers some kind of contol over the resolution you could experance a quality hit. In general it's best to keep everything vector as long as possiable.

It also depending on your target printer you could get exceptable quality but you would have to experment with the resolution.

(Example: When printing to an imagesettter, a 1200dpi 1-bit tiff would reproduce linework and type nearly identical to a similar illustrator 10/cs file set to high quality transparancy flatting. The reason is RIP would rasterise the illustrator file at the setting declaired by the Illustrators flatting setting. 1200dpi.)

I would suggest generating the PDF through the normal print dialog, choosing Acrobat as the printer. This will send postscript directly to Acrobat's Distiller, and it will use distillers setting. You can then choose one of the default set-up in distiller that would best suits you need.

You might also what to check out the fourms at: www.pdfplanet.com a lot of good info there on everything PDF.

J. Stuart J.



[This message has been edited by jstuartj (edited 02-11-2004).]

Ok, I just got PDF Maker to work with Excel 97, but I don't see any option like you discribe. But it may no longer be an option in Acrobat 6 Pro. The latest version of PDF Maker appears to be identical in function to printing via Acrobat distiller. It is simly short cut.

Are you perhap refering to the compression options under the images tab?

The print or press defaults should be ok, For image compression turn off compression on color and grayscale images for high quaily work and in the past I had a few problems with jpg compression inside pdf's on some older rips. A true Adobe PS level 3 rips should beable to deal with jpg compression just fine.

J. Stuart J.

WoW! Thanks so much? I guess I left out some information. I am strictly working with typography and yes, Acrobat has installed itself as an extension through excel. All I have to do is click on the Acrobat icon on my excel tool bar and like magic acrobat launches and formats my spread sheet into a PDF format. We are running Windows professional 2000, Acrobat 5.0 and I am importing the pdf files into Quark 5.0 via a picture box. Oh, yes we are able to fix the resolution there is a drop down that allows you to pick your format and desired dpi. I have been allowing all the defaults to format my files but we have run into a situation that we might need to format the pdfs as tiffs (still only working w/type).

It is complicated because we have two printers one that prints Post Script and one that does not. When I print my imported pdf files (thru quark) on the non-post script printer the fonts look so bad (it scared me and raised questions about the formatting of the pdfs). The other printer looks great. It was just something I was looking into because this project is pretty big and we will be dealing with this situation quite a bit in the future ? it saves so much time for us. I just want my type to hold its vector quality and be able to be printed w/out too much hassle. There are so many ?SAVE AS? features through Acrobat that it gets confusing ? I will be sure to checkout that link you posted ? can?t wait!