prepress: Corel or pdf 1

[samuca]

well,
I´d send a business card (I did in Corel 10) wich has pantone colors in pdf. I gess what i want is rather any suggestion than an answer.

Sending the file in Corel keep the page size and is possible to bleed the images so i can let the printer prepare crop marks and etc. In the other hand, by setting a pdf, in spite of saving time, reducing the size and "packing" all the stuff (don´t have to send fonts separately etc), i have to put the page larger than the original to put "manually" the crops and maintain the bleed. Wich one is the best way to do? One thing that i´m worried about is the crop marks of corel. They dont´t seem to output in the spot color, instead, they go in CMYK. Wouldn´t it bring troubles to the printer?

well, hope i didn´t messed it up.

thanks

 

[javabearSTL]

You could always just send the printer an EPS file of the business card with the bleed included. (and in the EPS file have all fonts converted to curves) You could also include a PDF file that's basically a mock-up showing the printer a soft-proof of what you want the card to look like when it's cut (put the card with the bleed into a powerclip that's the size of the biz card) and also a "view" of the card with the bleed showing crop marks on the same page - sort of an instruction sheet.

If you do want to send them a PDF for printing purposes, and you're using the internal PDF generation from Draw, I don't have v10 on this machine so I'm hoping it's similar to v12 in this regard... When you do a File |Publish to PDF, in the PDF Style option at the bottom of the dialog box, choose PDF for Prepress. And on the Prepress tab, choose Crop Marks; on the Advanced tab, under Color Management, where it says Output All Objects As: by default, it's CMYK. Change that to Native. That way it will not change anything - if you have it as a PMS color, it will stay a PMS color... on the other hand, if you have mixed RGB, CMYK, and PMS, it'll be all mixed up and your printer will really hate you

When you make your PDF this way, your crop marks will come out as Registration color, which is a PMS color and should not bother your printer.

 

[samuca]

Perfect!
Exactly what i wanted to know. I have Corel 12 at home and i´ll try it out.

Thank you very much!

 

[Brushman]

I'm not a fan of the publish to pdf option as there have been font issues with it (mainly on symbols/bullets I think)it might be worth looking at Jaws pdf creator or similar as this installs a pdf printer which you print to, by using this method you have all the benefits of the print preview options ie multi up/separation etc. so your printer can RIP a pre-separated, pre - spaced file if need be. You obviously could use full Acrobat but Jaws or one of the other clones is much cheaper.
Alan

 

[javabearSTL]

I agree - I think going with Jaws would be better, but he didn't mention that he had a 3rd party app to go with, so I didn't use that as an option.

 

[Brushman]

Javabear - yes fair comment on the 3rd party point, but for future reference for anybody following this thread the cost of Jaws or similar (£50.00 ish)is a sound investment if you do much of this work and especially as it can be used with your other Windows programmes.
Regards
Alan

 

[javabearSTL]

Oh, no, I totally agree about Jaws. I do have the full version of Acrobat (albeit older versions -v4 at home and v5 at work), but if I were to upgrade today or to buy a new version (and when my work is buying new versions, I keep trying to get them to go to Jaws) I am suggesting that people switch to Jaws. Much more bang for your buck - I wish I had been more informed about Jaws when I had made my original purchase. Personally, I do not use the built-in PDF generation (well, i should restate - rarely do i use) tool of any app... I always use Acrobat ... or a 3rd party tool like Jaws.

 

[Brushman]

Javabear, we are in total agreement here.
PDF is taking over as the prefered file format in the printing industry when files are transfered to others, so to have this well sorted in anybody's workflow is the way to go.
On a different note I have a feeling that Jaws/Global systems provide the PDF engine for Quark but I could be wrong.
Alan

 

[samuca]

I agree with both of you. Pdf is really taking over.

I give it up using Corel 10 export (although i haven´t tried with corel 12 yet). I followed Javabear instructions (version 10 seems to have the same options as version 12). I set the option to include bleed and crop marks. But the pdf file page size is the same of the original Corel file. It should be the biz size plus the area of bleed and crops, shouldn´t be?

Anyway, in terms of prepress, i think the most advisable way to proceed is to ask for the printer the best way to send him these files. But i always try to find a kind of "general" process (pratical and secure), that would work for most of printshops and i think PDF is the best way.
In time, Didn´t know about jaws pdf creator. I visited their website and found it quite interesting. I´ll suggest it here in my office. I hope they accept it.

Thank you.