Warning in print screen "needs flattening" 1

[ickivay]

I'm trying to send my brochure page 1 to the commercial printer and I'm using drop shadows behind pictures. I have to send pdf's. Upon sending the print dialog box gives a warning that "layers need flattening". I've sent several previous jobs to the printer and have never had this happen. Is it due to drop shadows? If so can it be flattened and sent? The drop shadows make it look waaaaay better!!! Please help.

Thanks,
Vicki

 

[NFAY]

Yes, it is the drop shadows. Actually any effect that has transparency will need to be flattened.

Giant gold stars to you for actually paying attention to the warning.

Detailed info here.
[URL unfurl="true"]http://faystudios.com/illustrator/faq-print.cfm[/url]

 

[ickivay]

Thanks, but to no avail. I will probably have to loose the drop shadows. The detailed link didn't help, but thank you for the info.

 

[NFAY]

So did you select all of your document and flatten it and STILL have the error message? If so, do you have any locked layers? You cannot flatten layers you cannot select and of course you can't select them if they are locked.

You also need to use Object>Flatten Transparency and not the Flatten in the layers palette (at least I have had trouble with that even with all layers selected).

I am sure there is a way to keep those shadows. I just did a test to a pdf file after doing all those steps on a document that needed to be flattened and it worked perfectly. Realize though that you might not want to spend the effort to keep those shadows.

Good luck.

 

[signal49]

(Star for you NFAY - great link!)

 

[NFAY]

Many thanks signal49!