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pdf printer

New Here ,
May 21, 2012 May 21, 2012

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installing a pdf printer

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Print and prepress

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LEGEND ,
May 21, 2012 May 21, 2012

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And what exactly do you mean? You need to be more specific.

Mylenium

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Adobe Employee ,
May 21, 2012 May 21, 2012

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Moving this discussion to the Printing & Prepress forum within the Acrobat forums.

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LEGEND ,
May 23, 2012 May 23, 2012

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A little tongue in cheek; nevertheless -

Install Adobe Acrobat.

Be well...

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New Here ,
Aug 29, 2012 Aug 29, 2012

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I'm looking for an answer to installing a PDF printer in Mac OS X 10.7.3. I've installed Adobe Acrobat. That doesn't help me when I want to print from Quark or InDesign, or any other application, to a postscript file. How do install in Mac OS X 10.7.3 what used to be known in previous Mac OS's as a printer description file, or printer driver, for printing to .ps files?

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Aug 29, 2012 Aug 29, 2012

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You cannot install such a PostScript printer driver instance under MacOS anymore. It is an operating system restriction.

For Adobe applications, you really should never be producing PDF via distillation of PostScript anyway. Simply export PDF from InDesign or save PDF from Illustrator or Photoshop. This yields much higher quality PDF than you would ever achieve via the distillation of PostScript route.

For other applications assuming you have Acrobat Pro installed, you can get Adobe quality PDF by simply going to the print dialog and from the lower left corner dropdown box, choose Save as Adobe PDF.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

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New Here ,
Aug 29, 2012 Aug 29, 2012

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Dov,

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, your answer doesn’t help. Yes, I have Acrobat Pro installed. I don’t have a printer installed. I need to create PDFs for everything. But when I’m other applications, like QuarkXPress - the main program I use, there isn't a dropdown box in the lower left corner. It demands that I choose a printer driver so that it can set up its print parameters. In the absence of an Adobe PDF printer driver (my preference), it defaults to “Generic BW” or “Generic color” or some other printer that I don’t have. If I choose from any of the default choices, I don’t have the control that need for setting the page size and printable area (it’s part of those printer’s default settings, which I can’t change). If I can’t install a PostScript printer driver, which default printer driver should I choose to make the best PDFs (i.e. where I can set custom page sizes, and not deal with printable areas)?

Also, I’ve always produced my PDFs via distillation of PostScript. It gives me the most control in determining the qulity and file size of my PDFs. Why do you say I should NEVER do that?

Thanks,

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Aug 29, 2012 Aug 29, 2012

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For Adobe applications, the PostScript generated for printing is optimized for printing, not for creation of PDF. The needs for printing, especially in terms of how fonts are output in the PostScript stream, are very different than the needs for PDF. Furthermore, in creating PDF via distillation of PostScript, you end up with PDF with no live transparency and no color management. PostScript doesn't support live transparency or ICC color management. All transparency in your InDesign, Illustrator, and/or Photoshop files is flattened at some resolution (whatever parameters you specify). Your resultant PDF is effectively now device resolution and color space dependent. Text quality may suffer if it was involved in flattening and may not be searchable or capable fo being edited with text touch-up. Direct PDF creation from these applications gives you full choice of the same joboptions and more (including support for PDF/X-4) than you have with Distiller!!! For InDesign-exported PDF, recent versions of InDesign provide signficant optimization in terms of repeated use of graphical objects in cutting the size of the resultant PDF files. We know of no good reason other than perhaps traditions that should be replaced for continuing to create PDF via distillation of PostScript from Adobe applications either on Macintosh or on Windows.

Unfortunately, I obviously cannot speak for Quark. They do provide their own PDF creation capability with their product for which I have no idea how good, bad, or indifferent it may be.

For other applications, the method I described in my previous postings should work (I know it works with Acrobat Pro and any and all Microsoft and Apple applications on MacOS).

        - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

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New Here ,
Jul 15, 2015 Jul 15, 2015

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I'm surprised that you reckon the normal pdf output is better than distilling to press-ready from a ps file. My experience with most automatic pdf output is that it's not sufficiently high res for high-quality press work. However my question is slightly different. I've just upgraded to Yosemite (and boy was that a mistake), and had to buy all new of pretty much everything. I used to use the pdf ppd in Quark as it allowed me to specify odd page sizes, which my normal printer drivers don't allow (they will only allow the paper sizes that their trays will take). I am currently a bit stuffed because I can't use custom paper sizes except with the Adobe ppd, and most of my publications are custom trim sizes. I also have the same problem as your original enquirer, that I'm getting stuck with generic colour profiles instead of being able to specify the Adobe ones. It sounds as it there's simply no way around this as I can't get printer drivers any more. Is that right?

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LEGEND ,
Jul 15, 2015 Jul 15, 2015

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Not sure which is the specific problem. If the features you need come from the Adobe PDF PPD, you can use it. No printer driver is needed.

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New Here ,
Nov 22, 2012 Nov 22, 2012

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OK, but what if I create a Poster at A4 (for file size) and I want to create a PDF that is A1 (so increase it by 200%). How do I do that now?

Indesign CS6

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LEGEND ,
Nov 22, 2012 Nov 22, 2012

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Scale in InDesign. Don't try to do it later, it's something to do at the design stage. Don't abandon PDF export just because you want to do something differently.

(Prepress pros might have plug-ins that can scale PDFs, but designers don't need to go there)

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New Here ,
Nov 27, 2012 Nov 27, 2012

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before, download one driver ppd from sceen or agfa (www.screen.co.jp - www.agfagraphics.com ) postscript after you must plce this driver into folder ppd of system.

when you need to print specify the folder that it contain the PPD.

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New Here ,
Apr 16, 2013 Apr 16, 2013

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Hi all,

I think we have the same problem: acrobat installed but when you Export a file you still see the default Indesign limited PDF dialog.

The solution for me was to go to menu File > Adobe PDF presets > [select on here]

Once selected just give a name to the file and save a PDF.

Now the next time you Export via File > Export, it will remember the last option (which is indeed, the PDF printing dialog)

I hope that helped anhgone with the same problem.

regards,

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LEGEND ,
Apr 17, 2013 Apr 17, 2013

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Actually, installing Acrobat has NO EFFECT on what InDesign export is capable of or how it works. It has the same options before and after, and does the same job. Acrobat is simply not involved with InDesign PDF Export before or after. (It might add named presets, but not capabilities).

Export is strongly recommended over printing to PDF for InDesign, as has been noted.

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