The use of PDF in printing

In the past decade or so, there has been an unprecedented technological revolution in the printing industry. Everything now is unthinkable in 1985. In recent years, PDF has quietly appeared in our work, but it has not been able to play a protagonist. However, with the release of Acrobat 4, especially its color improvement, we have to seriously review the PDF again. Making a PDF file usually takes only two steps (sometimes you can also use a simpler method). The first step is to make a Postscript file. (In fact, almost all typesetting software can directly complete this step. Since the Postscript file already contains picture information, it does not need to attach picture files, and some typesetting software creates files such as QuarkXPress files or some PageMaker documents, you need to bring some picture files.) The second step is to use Distiller to convert Postscript files into PDF files. For some software such as PageMaker, converting a PageMaker document to a PDF file can be done in one go without seeing the two steps mentioned above because Distiller is already hanging in PageMaker. There is a beta version of the Xtension for QuarkXPress 4 on the Quark website. Its function is to import and export PDF files. Adobe InDesign (formerly known as K-2) for design and typesetting produced by Adobe can directly generate PDF files without the help of Distiller. Acrobat Distiller can read Postscript files, convert them, and store them as regular PDF files. To output PDF files on Postscript Level 2 or Level 3 imagesetters, simply perform some simple processing such as CMYK color separation on them. When generating Postscript files, the user has to set some important options on font-related issues, and other options can be set when generating PDF files. Information related to this can be found on Adobe's website. In late 1998, Acquired Knowledge released EZ-PDF, which sells for $79. The software uses a "virtual printer" to help Acrobat get the correct PDF file directly from the Mac document. The software supports a variety of printer settings and also supports the Adobe Portable Job Ticket Format (PJTF) format. Prior to Acrobat 4, it was easy to make mistakes when generating PDF files with Distiller because its default settings were some of the parameters needed to use the screen display, not the parameters used in the high-end color reproduction process. Therefore, the resolution of many PDF files obtained is too low, and the picture mode is mostly RGB instead of CMYK. Acrobat 4 provides three default settings and thus solves this problem. The three default settings are screen display, printing, and printing. Among them, the last setting has less information compression and the color information also meets the requirements of the printing process. Users can make custom settings based on these default settings based on their own needs, and can also share the settings with other users. In addition, Acrobat 4 also fully supports Mac's ColorSync CMS, so that the profile of the scanner and/or display contained in the image will be preserved, and the profile of the output device will also be used. In the production process of the printing job, there is a problem that the producer may not be aware of the final printing conditions and thus cannot set the relevant parameters accurately. Adobe's PDFWriter is a project in the Chooser, similar to the Apple LaserWriter 8. It supports a concept called "virtual printer." When printing a Postscript file with a "virtual printer", some options that are currently undecided may be temporarily left blank, waiting to be finally selected according to the specific situation. In some cases, it is not until the last minute before the release can all parameters be determined. Acrobat 4 can support ICC profiles, CMYK files for layout software formats, page bleeding, and multi-resolution settings. Its color management tool ensures the best color quality of the job. At present, almost all color management solutions are based on the ICC standard. Therefore, if we can accurately use the input and output device profile and pay attention to the processing of the profile throughout the PDF workflow, we can correctly complete the color management. With the upgrade of Acrobat, producers of Acrobat plug-ins are also actively launching their own new products. In addition, Enfocus, Lantana, and Quite also integrated their products in the PDF PowerPack, which is more cost-effective for the user than buying individual products. It is believed that PDF will become more and more popular.