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Acrobat Distiller

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vani65

Programmer
May 19, 2003
101
AU
Can someone please elaborate Acrobat Distiller? I am not familiar with this -- How do you print to this and then save as a .pdf?
 
You need the full version of Adobe Acobat. Adobe Acobat reader won't cut it.
You print to file (pc) print to Postscript (mac) first then open the Acrobat Distiller which live in the Acrobat folder which will turn your .ps file into a .PDF

Marcus
 
Distiller is the 'engine' that converts a postscript file to a PDF. But Distiller can also be used as the postscript printer to create the postscript file when you print 'to file' from any application. This is assuming you actually have a copy of Distiller. It comes as part of the Acrobat package, or is included with applications such as Pagemaker.
 
Marcus

I've never received 'support' from Pagemaker from anyone. The fact that they are no longer going to update it is no problem for me - it currently does (and will probably continue to do so) everything I require from a page layout application.

I would LOVE to upgrade to In Design, but there are several problems with this - both at home and at work. You need at least Win 2K or XP to run it, and both computers I work on are still using Win 98. Upgrading to ID would therefore require upgrading of the OS, which in turn would mean I would have to upgrade most of my peripherals such as scanner and printer, as they don't make modern drivers for them (they're getting old too).

The only thing that will eventually stop me using PM is when my computer dies and I am forced to buy a new one, which will inevitably come with XP. Then I will have to seriously consider it. I have no idea how far in the future that will be - years??
 
I use Acrobat 5 at home and (don't laugh) Distiller 3 at work. The boss is too cheap to upgrade beyond PM 6.5 and Distiller 3 - we don't even have a copy of the full Acrobat. Unbelievable for a small printshop, I know. But we don't make the film from layouts not created in-house (these are done at a service bureau), so anything received that would require anything more sophisticated than what we have is sent to the filmhouse. Anything I create in-house from PM that is to be printed B&W only we make our own film from clean laser copies of the printout. Otherwise either the original PM package is sent to the filmhouse using 'save for service provider' OR as a high-rez PDF generated using Distiller 3. Nothing wrong with this level PDF (V 1.2?) as - of course - it never causes any problems on the RIP. Only newest version PDFs seem to cause hiccups when RIPped on older RIPs.

We're still fairly backward with our other Adobe apps too - older versions of Photoshop and Illustrator - but again, they do the job required, so why spend the money upgrading? The only time I have ever wished I had a newer version of a software at work was in my previous job (also at a small printshop) where the layout application used was Coreldraw. They only did small jobs - lots of business cards and programs and brochure type stuff, so CD was OK. BUT considering that this business was based on CD, I couldn't believe how old the version we were using was. Can't remember the actual versioin number, but was the one before CD was able to import PDFs.

What do you use at work for your layouts?
 
We work in Quark 6, InDesign 2 and CS, Framemaker, Pagemaker 7(PC). Mostly everything is done in Quark. Some Clients request all their work be done in InDesign etc.
We just spent a tonne of dough on Upgrades to OSX, XP etc. and therefore had to update all programs. ouch!

Marcus
 
How did you manage to convince your boss to outlay that kind of money to upgrade?

Do you prefer Quark or ID for layout? Why?
 
Because he couldn't do what he wanted one day, and I told him that the only way was to upgrade, so here I am.
I like them both the same. they both have their good points and bad. I am leaning towards Indesign, only because of the design feature with opentype, dropshadows, being able to import native photoshop transpenency etc.

Marcus
 
>>Because he couldn't do what he wanted one day,<<

And what was it? Perhaps I could 'manufacture' a similar situation?
 
Thanks guys for your valuable explanations.
 
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