Distiller question - why not pdf only

[kentucky]

Why do some printers want the file distilled before making a pdf? Why not just a PDF? This is time consuming.
Also, does anyone know why I may not be able to change my layout from landscape to portrait when printing a Quark pdf from Adobe Acrobat 6.0? I have Mac OSX. Is this a mac issue?

 

[MarcusStringer]

Some printers want you to print to a postscript file, then run it through Distiller to produce the PDF, because, like me, they think it is more stable.



Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[RyanPace]

Is it more time consuming to create postscript and distill or to have your printer call and tell you your pdf won't rip and ask you to create and resend it again?

Quark 6 and other newer programs use new technology to create pdfs. It used to be that when selecting output to pdf, the application created a ps file and then used distiller to create the pdf. (this all happened behind the scenes and the user never saw it) The same as if you did it manually. Many imagesetters and rips (used to make plates or film) do not always work well with these new pdfs, causing postscript errors etc. If they ask for something specific it is usually because that's what they have found to be most reliable for their system.

 

[td132]

You should ask your printer to send you their distiller settings. This will make things a lot easier on both of you, you can be assured your PDF file will work with their RIP software.

One reason why the new pdf writer doesn't work for some printers is they haven't upgraded their RIP software to the current version.