Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator product description

(Version 3.1 RC 2 published here 7'the July 2003)

Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator is an extremely advanced PostScript based application that integrate completely with Adobe Acrobat 5.0 or 6.0 and force Acrobat Distiller to create press-ready PDF/X documents with CMYK colours. It can even impose your documents into print-ready booklets on-the-fly.

Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator function as any other printer on Windows 2000 or Windows XP and is therefore extremely easy to use.

Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator gives you the power to create high quality PDF/X certified documents for prepress from virtually any software application, incl. any MS Office application, Adobe Framemaker on Windows, GIS applications like MapInfo and ArcView and, of course, any 'true' dtp application. Even applications such as Crystal Reports can create press-ready PDF/X compliant PDF documents when set-up to print via Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator.

Key features

What's different about Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator is that unlike the many "Post PDF" repair kits, Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator intervenes in the "Pre PDF" phase and cleans the incoming bad Postscript on-the-fly before it hits Acrobat Distiller. And the only thing you have to do is click the print button.

Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator generates press-ready PDF/X documents on-the-fly and offer the following advanced features, which can be controlled directly from the standard Windows Print dialog (Print -> Properties -> Advanced dialog):

• Booklet Printing: The default setting is None, but you can e.g. select Automatic 2-up Booklet if you want to prepare a PDF document e.g. for in-house printing on a laser printer.
  Note: This function is not designed to handle 'Landscape' pages.
   
• Output Media Size: The default setting is Automatic, but you can choose between almost any popular media size. If you e.g. need to print a 4 pages Letter or A4 size folder on a 12x18 sheet do as follows:
  a) Set the Paper Size to either Letter or A4 (depending on your document page size)
  b) Select Automatic 2-up Booklet as Booklet Printing option
  c) Set 12x18 as Output Media Size.
  This will produce a PDF/X-3 compliant PDF document with 2 pages, where your documents pages are re-ordered in pairs (4-1 and 2-3 respectively) - ready for duplex printing and folding.
   
• Output Media Cropping: The default setting None assure that no cropping occur, i.e. the whole Media Size will be visible in your PDF viewer. The Crop to Trim Marks setting will preserve information about the Output Media Size and save it into the PDF, but your PDF viewer will only display page contents that fall inside the trimming region. A proper bleed region is defined in both cases.
   
• Trim Marks: Can be turned Enabled and Disabled.
   
• Registration Marks: Can be turned Enabled and Disabled.
   
• Save Mode: The default setting is As Adobe PDF. Additional settings are As PostScript and As PS and Adobe PDF, which both are provided for automation and/or debugging purposes.
   
  The As PostScript setting saves a .PS file in the 'Spool files' sub folder to the folder where you installed Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator. The file will be named after the enumeration syntax XXXX.PS, where XXXX represents a unique number in the range 1-9999. The contents of each PostScript file printed that way is exactly identical to the original PostScript stream as it were before Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator grabbed it. In other words, this function can be used to automate creation of standard Windows PostScript files without getting prompted for each file.
  Note: This function works even with the trial version of Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator and doesn't alter the original PostScript stream in any way. It just saves the PostScript file, which then can be run with Distiller in the normal way.
   
  The As PS and Adobe PDF setting creates a Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator PDF/X document and preserve the original PostScript file as does the As PostScript setting in case you need it for other purposes.
   
• Black Generation: Choose between 12 different GCR/UCR settings covering most needs for the various printing technologies and paper types used in commercial printing. The default setting is GCR 360 Light.
   
• Colour Output Mode: Applies to vector based art and text only. The default setting is Preserve CMYK Gray as CMYK. In this mode both RGB, CMYK and 'true' gray representations of Gray is converted to CMYK Gray, i.e. gray nuances are represented only via the K colorant. This is the recommended setting unless special requirements needs either the Convert CMYK Gray to True Gray or the Convert Everything to True Gray setting.
   
• Image Conversion: The default setting is Convert to CMYK, but a Leave Images Unchanged setting can optionally be selected when images need back-end Colour Management. Note that if you Leave Images Unchanged and RGB images are part of your document Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator can't produce PDF/X compliant PDF documents (and Distiller 6.0 will abort PDF creation if you enable it's PDF/X validation options).
   
• SPOT Colour Conversion: The default setting is Convert to CMYK, but a Leave SPOT Colours Unchanged setting will pass on SPOT colours as they are.
    
• Automatic Overprint: Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator turns Overprint On on Black and Off on any other colour by design.

System requirements:

• Windows 2000 or Windows XP (can be successfully  installed on older Windows versions as well, but that will require separate installation of the AdobePS printing engine, which is not included with Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator.)
• Adobe Acrobat 5.0 or newer, the full product incl. the Acrobat Distiller printer (5.X) or Adobe PDF printer (6.0).
• All revisions since revision 3.00.0279 fully supports Adobe Acrobat 6.0.

Limitations:

• The Acrobat Distiller Job Options must be set-up to pass on CMYK colours. Please see the document How to: Ensuring Successful PDF Conversion for details about this.
• Grafikhuset CMYK PDF Creator does not convert so-called Smooth Shadings. Colours defined in Smooth Shadings are passed on unchanged.

Additional information

The contact person at Grafikhuset: Jacob Schäffer, who also can be reached on telephone at +45 7011 0999.