MS Publisher to PDF/Illustrator/Photoshop 1

[mitmont]

Something interesting. I have a map with a lot of details I'm sending to a print shop. It was done in MS Publisher and converted to a pdf file. The pdf file seems good here except the printer is unable to open this 20MB file and print it to an Epson plotter or the print plate machine because of the postscript. Changing it to Photoshop it's able to be opened at the printer however the quality of the file is poor even at 300 dpi. The text in the rastered file is poor. Increasing it to 450 dpi only causes the size of the file to increase. The text font is verdana and the pitch is 8. I've read about raster compatible fonts. Any suggestions from the forum. I have photoshop cs 7 and illustrator cs. Keys are quality of the text and a file able to be opened and used by the printer.

Thanks

Still looking for solutions.

 

[jimoblak]

Increasing it to 450 dpi only causes the size of the file to increase.

Of course it does. I would probably go for at least 600 ppi for line art. Then make sure that the output device is set to handle bitmaps at that higher resolution. You may have seen no visual difference between the 300 and 450 ppi resolution if the output device was still working at 300 ppi for bitmap images.

What happens when you open the PDF file in Illustrator and clean up any oddities?

 

[mitmont]

Illustrator had a unknown error bringing in the 334 MB pdf file. As far as the output device the I was comparing the screen image quality between the two files.

My next thought is to eliminate the additional text from the publisher file, convert to pdf and then into Photoshop and within Photoshop add the missing text using the text tool. I'm heistant to do this because of the coloring of the text and the amount of text that I would have to do. The text was in excel and brought into the original publisher file. It was a complex process building this map.

I'll move the quality up to the 600 ppi. I just had a quick course on image resolution, ppi and dpi. I have a question regarding the file display indication.

http://www.arraich.com/ref/resolution.htm

About midway down it shows an eggplant image at 66.7% with 600 ppi and the other image of the same area at 500% with 72 ppi. Increasing the viewing size with the CTRL+ keys 1 size up changes the quailty on my map immensely. The display looks great at 25% however not great at 16.7%. Can I do a specific comparison to the screen display and printed output?

Thanks

 

[apepp]

...better to view bitmaps in photoshop at 100%, this will give you a better idea of image quality, and a better idea of how it may print...

...have you tried saving the pdf as eps first then import into illustrator with any fonts used in the pdf active on your system?

...if you have enfocus pitstop you can change all the text and lines to outline using a transparency trick, then save out to eps or postcript and import this into illustrator, no fonts required and text is then preserved to vector...

...images can then be dealt with seperately...

Andrew

 

[mitmont]

I agree with the viewing at 100%. The appearance at 100% on the screen display is very clear, however going to the printer (offset print company in Ohio) I was concerned about the quality of the print job. I had already sent them a PSD file at 300 dpi and it came back that the quality wasn't that great. I had sent them an eps file however I hadn't imported it to Illustrator. I'll give that a shot.

 

[apepp]

...the quality issue will be governed by how the publisher file has been constructed, if any images used here aren't adequate then you will struggle to get a decent output...

...if you manage to get it into illustrator you can use the document info palette to check the bitmaps resolution (effective resolution) under embedded images (from the flyout menu), if the ones you select are under 300dpi in illustrator resampling them further will do little to the cause...

...of course it is possible that the images are 300 dpi but are of poor quality, to check, select one with your select tool and use the copy command, jot down the resolution of this image, launch photoshop, create new doc with the same resolution and paste as pixels, view at 100%...

Andrew

 

[apepp]

...also if this map has to be output larger, scaled up in a layout application, this will also affect quality and reduce the effective resolution...

Andrew

 

[jmgalvin]

Depending on how complicated the map, without text, is you can try opening in Photoshop, creating paths, and then exporting those paths to Illustrator (File menu/export).

Then refill or stroke the paths as necessary and add text. This is fairly easy if the map is very simple. The more complicated, the harder it becomes. I have to do that pretty regularly with logos sent to us in a conditon that will not print properly (like scans of letterhead in a 72 dpi jpeg).

I;m surprised that noone has mentioned that you should never use Publisher for stuff that's goping to professional printing. Your experience is more the rual than the exception. For one page docs, Illustrator will always yield better results.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[mitmont]

Thanks JM. Yeah I've heard that from some of my past connections with the printer community. However my experience level in both AI or PS is limited to the conversion process.

The components of the map are individual tif images at 400dpi. The images are assembled together to not overlap and then colored in transparent to provide designations for different areas. The text comes in from the Publisher text tool and also from Excel table via a copy/paste. You can tell I'm a Windows guy. Most of what I'm attempting to do is tiff and highlights, not really that tough I thought. The map size upon completion will be 28" by 40". Personally I think the map is very complex. I'm working with a 90MB Pub file, 22MB Pdf file and upon completion on teh conversions to PS now the files are 334MB(300dpi,Print press quality) and 550MB(300dpi, High quality Print). I'm attempting one more conversion at the 600 dpi just to see what the quality will be. When I send it it'll be on a disk this time. As far as the print press operation the big issue is getting the Print Plate machine to accept the postscript in Adobe Writer so I converted a new file from Pub to Adobe with Postscript deseleced as an option.

There are alot of components when I get right down too it. About 100 hours of work not counting the conversion attempts. It's important for me to get this done so if I have to I'll go back to the drawing board and hunker down with Photoshop and get to it.

Thanks for the input. If anyone has any other thoughts from the Adobe AI/PS/Writer side or the print press operation side it would be appreciated. Thank you.

Dave

 

[jmgalvin]

Yeah, it does sound complex, as opposed to just a bunch of lines separating states, etc. Hard to make the paths.

The postscript problem is being generated by Publisher and there's little you can do about it. That's always been the underlying problem with that app.

Since the underlying components are tiffs, you're already rasterized at 400 dpi. If the map has to be blown up to meet the final size of 28x40 you will lose quality. If not you have several options.

I'd guess the best would be to open Distiller, part of Acrobat, and go to Settings - that's where you get Press/print/screen, etc. Create a setting with NO downsampling. Call it something like 0. Take out all the text used in Publisher if possible. Then create the pdf using your 0 setting. You should be able to select that setting via Writer.

Then use Photoshop to open that pdf. If you get a screen asking for resolution select Leave As Is or 600 (minimum-1200 better) dpi. Don't pay any attention to the screen size - only the print size. Create a new, transparent layer (so you can undo later if necessary) in Photoshop and add the text. You can then save as one giant tiff and send to the printer. You're best off saving a copy of the Photoshop file, flattening that and mke that the tiff. The reason I mentioned the high resolution is that text need far higher resolution than the underlying tiffs for final print. That pdf Press setting sets text resolution at 2400.

Another possibility is to go through the steps up to opening in Photoshop and use the Place command in Illustrator to set the pdf. Then add the text in Illustrator and use the pdf export command. Again, select the 0 setting you made. You could also send the printer the Illustrator file but, if you do so, make sure to include copies of all the fonts used.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[mitmont]

Thanks JM,

I decided last night that I had gone far enough on work arounds. I pulled down the trial version of AI and recreated the map. After several hours I was able to get all of the tiffs and most of the colors designations. I just spoke to the printer. They can hadle the .AI file and as of right now I don't have any text on the map. I also did a Save as and selected pdf. It's still a large file by comparison of 35MB. I appreciate the great input. The file page that I'm actually using is 28" x 40" as mypaper size so there won't be any blowing up. The quality I selected in preferences is high and for the raster settings I selected 600 dpi. I'll know in a little bit how the printer handles the file quality. It was important to get it the right I have 3 more maps to do about the same size and complexity. When everything works I'll just buy the version of AI that I have. I'm almost sure the AI is the correct app that I want to use in comparison to Photoshop. AI seemed pretty easy after I took the crash course on the internet and the hands on in the program. A last item I wasn't able to find the step for creating a triangle or a circle. Everything I read said to use the circle tool however i don't see the tool on the pallet or under the window.

Thanks again.

Dave

By George I think he's got it!!

 

[jmgalvin]

Circle tool - Clcick and hold on rectangle tool and mosre sahpes will appear. Select the Elipse and hold down shift key while drawing. That will give you a circle.

Triangle - use the same flyout from teh rectangle tool and select polygon. Click on teh Ai artboard and you'll get a window asking for the number of sides. Alternatively, select the polygon and hold the down arrow key when drawing. You'll get a triangle and this will hold until you use the up arrow key to increase the # of sides.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[mitmont]

JM You're the Man!!. Thanks short and sweet.

Dave