How to get a PDF with native transparency using Distiller

Did you know that you can export a postscript file from QuarkXPress 8 and distill a PDF with transparency? Well, you can. But you have to set things up first. You see, Acrobat Distiller does not automatically allow for transparency in any of it's job options. Adobe has set things so that anytime it detects transparency in a postscript file the job will fail. But there is a way to work around that.


You may be wondering though. How is it that you can get transparency into a postscript file? Good question! The answer is PDF Marks. pdfmark is a PostScript operator that allows for the inclusion of PDF features when the PostScript file is converted to PDF. In this case, transparency! QuarkXPress utilizes pdfmark when you export a postscript file thereby allowing you to include transparency.


Lets begin by looking at our PDF options in Quark Preferences. You have two options. Either to directly export a PDF or to create a postscript file. If you have not changed the setting to creating a postscript file, do so now.


Oh, before I continue. Let me answer the obvious question you are probably thinking. "I can export directly to PDF with native transparency already. Why do I want to do things this way?" Well…if you are an old hand at this you probably print to postscript then distill to get your PDF. That's the way I was taught anyway and it's usually foolproof. The problem is that any time you print to postscript you flatten the postscript file. No transparency. OK, so again, you can export to PDF with transparency directly out of XPress. Again, why do it this way? Because when you export to PDF you are entirely at the mercy of the JAWS engine that XPress uses to create your PDF. You have no control over the final PDF except by what settings you can control in XPress. Now, XPress has gotten better at this over the years, but I challenge you to compare the file sizes of an exported PDF with transparency and one that has been distilled by Acrobat Distiller. I'll bet that Distiller will show that it does a better job at this. So, let's try it.


Make a new file or use an existing one. Lay in some transparent objects. Below is my example. A white box over an image with 50% transparency applied.

 
Next we will export to postscript. Notice I have created a PDF setting. This setting has the option of "Export Native Transparency." You can manually set this yourself, but if you decide to do this frequently I'd create a PDF export setting for it so you don't have to keep doing that every time you want to export.

Once you are done exporting you'll have your postscript file. But we aren't done yet. Recall that I said that Acrobat Distiller will reject a postscript file with native transparency? Well, we have to fix that. The best way is to find where your job options are stored, duplicate one or from within Distiller modify one and save it as new. Whatever way you do it, we need to open this job option in a text editor. On my Mac, my job options are located here: Macintosh HD>Users>~username>Library>Application Support>Adobe>Adobe PDF>Settings. Open the job option in your text editor and look for the following line /Allow Transparency false. This should be at the top of the file. You want to erase "false" and write in "true" (without the quotes). Save. If you have not quit Distiller, do so now and then reload and select the job option you just modified. Examples below…

OK. So now all we need to do is distill the PDF!

And here is the result! I have used Acrobat to move the white box to the right so you can see that this PDF is indeed transparent.

Now, if you have not edited the setting in the job option correctly, YOU WILL NOT GET A PDF AT ALL. You will see a notation in Distiller that it detected transparency in the postscript file and has therefore failed to create the PDF. So, make sure you have edited the job option correctly.


I hope this has helped you. I find this route to PDF to be a good middle ground between the old way of printing to postscript and Quark's way of exporting to PDF. You can still get transparency but maintain complete control of how you generate the PDF without leaving it entirely in Quark's hands.  

Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011

Rest in peace Steve. You changed the world through technology and we are all diminished by your death.

Newspaper Workflow

My first job in the industry I work in was for a daily paper as an Ad Compositor. It's where I picked up a large part of my current work flow. I've taken that workflow to a variety of small newspapers over the years because by and large I've found at those papers what I consider to be an unnecessary but all too common workflow. I'm going to cover that in this post and then present my workflow as an alternative. I am speaking towards QuarkXPress specifically, but you can apply this to just about any design app you may use.

Generally, at many small papers there are two kinds of documents. You will have ad documents which are the documents used to build ads and newspaper documents which are the documents used to build the actual paper. Often the two types are mixed. This often becomes a problem, especially on deadline.

Many designers will reuse old documents bringing them forward for each edition they work on. This can be problematic in that old content is often shoved off to the pasteboard or relegated to back pages which are never printed. All that unused stuff can collect and over time cause corruption in the document. In addition many designers fail to use the proper filetypes and colorspaces for their medium. RGB jpegs are really not a healthy ingredient in any document meant for print.

Designers further compound the problem when they open EVERY single ad document, copy everything in it for print and then paste it into their main newspaper document. Now you have not only a recipe for document corruption, you are also introducing font reflow, H&J conflicts, image linking issues and runaround problems!

There is an easier way! For your newspaper documents, create a template. Place your most commonly used elements on Master Pages. Then use the template to create a fresh document for every edition you publish. If there are items that are commonly used but not appropriate to store in a template (such as heads, cutlines, jump boxes, etc), store them in a library and pull them out of the library when necessary. Keep your document clean and delete anything off the pasteboard you don't intend to use or are unsure about. If you might use it, stick it in the library. Also, don't add pages just to store stuff. And don't create more than one layout in your project document. The layout should only have as many pages as your publication.

We build different parts of our paper in separate documents. Our Classifieds use a Classified template. Legals have their own template and so does our Business and Service Directory and our Religion Page. Based on where the Publisher wants those pages in the section, I section start those pages. This allows me to build these different parts of the paper in different phases. When we get to production days since all that content is built I can then just merge pages using a thumbnail drag into my main document. It works well and keeps things simple which avoids conflicts. One thing to do here though is to make sure your style sheets/Master Pages (if you use them) are defined. Our differen pages all begin the name of their style sheets and Master Pages with the name of the page. For instance, our Glendale Star City Notices (legals) will have a Master Page specified as GS City Notices and the legal style sheets are Noted as Legal Body, Legal Header, etc. If you get organized it all goes much more smoothly.

Now for ad documents, we work this a little differently. Every ad we do is built at size. If it's a 2 column by 3" ad it's built at 2 columns by 3 inches. When we are finished with the ad we then save out an EPS with embedded fonts. You could also choose to export a PDF if you wish. That EPS is then dropped in to our main newspaper document when we go to production. And that's all I ever have to deal with when it comes to the ads on production days. No opening ad documents, copying and pasting. It's a simple EPS file. You can do the same with PDF (which we have started to do). A PDF can then serve a dual purpose. When done with the ad the PDF is your proof which can be sent out and also imported to your newspaper document on the day you go to production.

All the way around it's just much easier to deal with a single file per ad versus the many boxes and content you have to dance around with the other way. It's fairly bulletproof and has been a good workflow for me at all of my various jobs.

So there you go. Let me know what you think about it!

Can't Open XPress File

Hello! If you came by this post by way of a search engine then you are probably looking for some way to get your XPress file open. It's either giving you an error, it's too old (or too new) for your version or just generally won't open.

Well, if you've tried everything you can think of but still aren't getting anywhere, send me an email. I can try and get it open for you. I can't promise success, but I will give it a shot. The only thing I ask from you is your patience. I work for a living just like you and when I'm not working I have other things I'm sometimes doing, so please be patient. I generally have what I think is a good turnaround time, but if you need a guaranteed fast turn around you're probably better off contacting Markzware. Keep in mind, they will probably charge you for it.

But if you can afford to wait, send me an email with your document. If your document is 25mb or more, let me know in your email and we can work something out. EDIT 9.20.2011: At this time I cannot run QuarkXPress 9.x, nor do I have a Markztools XTension for version 9.x. This means that if you have a corrupt 9.x file, unfortunately, I cannot help you. My apologies.

Click on View My Complete Profile, then click on my email under Contact. If you found me by way of the Quark Forums and are reading this because you clicked on the link in my signature you can either do the above or just contact me via the information in my Quark Forums signature.

Lastly and most important!
I do NOT charge for my help! Please…do not hesitate to contact me if you really need help, but are afraid I will ask you for money. I won't. My help is free. And it is unconditional. I won't ask you for something in exchange. So, if you need help, no worries.

I do however, accept donations. So, if you are inclined to do so, you can buy me a cup of coffee or send me something if you like. But please don't feel obligated to do so. I do this because I love QuarkXPress and want to give back.

I also do it because I know how it feels to be up against a deadline and to be dead in the water with no idea how to move forward. I hate that feeling and if I can help others get out of that desperate spot then it makes me happy.

Type on a circle using QuarkXPress

Have you ever wanted to put some type in XPress on a circular path or perhaps some other shape? I learned the following trick I'm going to show you from a coworker in my early years in the newsaper business. That was with QuarkXPress 4.1 on Mac. I don't believe you can do it on 3.x or below as it involves shapes that Im pretty sure were only introduced with version 4.0.

In any case, for this demonstration I'm using XPress 8.5 on a Powerbook 1.67Ghz. The steps below can be used on any version of XPress from 4.0 to 8.5. Note that you can also get this tip over at the Quark Forums. I've given the tip many times over there, but never with pictures. So, here we go…

1. Draw a circular shape on screen. It doesn't actually have to be a circle, but it does need to be a closed shape.


2. Convert the shape to a freehand shape.


3. Convert the shape content to text.


4. Click on the shape to insert your text. Notice that your text insertion point will be at the bottom of the shape. To fix that, center your text and the text will appear at the top of your shape.



5. Type in your copy.

6. Style the text as you like. Fonts, bold, italics, etc. You can also flip or reverse the text by using the command in the modify box, or you can baseline shift to bring the text down. If you need to angle the text, rotate the box. The box can also be resized or the shape of the box changed. If you want the shape itself to have a line then just enter a border size of 1 or more and set your color. If you do not want ANY line to print then just make sure that you have the line set to 0pt and a color of none. The only thing you can't do is have more than line. For that you should duplicate the box on top of itself, resize the box proportionally and then adjust your type/box settings with the new text.

Pretty simple if you know how to do it. What do you think?