Printing both black and coloured text and over coloured panels - how to set it up correctly

[joek63403600]

Hello, how do I set up an indesign print document correctly where I am using black and coloured text together in the same document? I'm used to using only text black for publishing but this client wanted coloured text as well as black text. The coloured text is set over coloured boxes as well as on white areas. My home printer is printing all the text as just black so I am a little concerned. I realise there may be a setting I need to alter for this but don't know what it is or perhaps I have set the text up incorrectly on the style sheets? I would like to know if it is okay to set the black text to overprint while leaving all the coloured text as it is? Also, my client does not have the printers details for me to contact so what is a generic setting to set the document print settings or HR pdf settings to so that it prints correctly. I also have white text printing on coloured boxes. I have set this up as 'paper' to knockout. Any advice would be great. Many thanks.

[@mj]

I suggest you use layers.

One for the black text and one for the coloured text.

To be safe, supply to PDFs, one with the black text layer, and the second with the coloured text layer.

This will make it easier for you to proof on your printer as well, especially if it is a non-Postscript device.

On the text on coloured backgrounds, Paper will work great, so you're OK there.

HTH

[joek63403600]

Hello thanks very much for this but I have text that follows on from black into colour or colour to black e.g.see screen grabs so I can’t really put the coloured text on a different layer as its’ all running text or can I?

Thanks

[@mj]

No stress. Don't think you attached the screen grabs Joe.

[joek63403600]

Here the are resaved as jpegs.

[@mj]

Soz dude, not coming through on this side.

You are using the Insert Image icon right?

[Derek Cross]

There's two parts to this.

1) Setting up your InDesign document correctly. I suggest you take the introductory course in this online video tutorial. The first chapter is called "Learn InDesign in 30 Minutes". You can perhaps take the rest of this (or other InDesign courses subsequently. You can get a 30-day free trial. InDesign CC 2018 Essential Training

2) Don't print your InDesign directly from the application but create a PDF and print from that. Probably the best choice of type of PDF (there are several) is to use the InDesign Acrobat PDF Presets and select (for a desk top inkjet printer) High Quality Print.

By the way work in the RGB color mode and let your PDF do the conversation to a suitable space.

[joek63403600]

Thanks Derek!

[John Yuelkenbeck]

Depending on your preferences, it's most likely that the black swatch at 100% will automatically overprint. (See “Appearance of Black” preference—the overprint button should be checked.)

How have you set up your color swatches? Depending on the way your finished document will print, you should check to see if they are set as spot or process. Even if they are set as spot, if you are writing to a .pdf and find out the client wants them process separated, there is a checkbox for making all spots process in the "Output" section of the .pdf output dialog.

[joek63403600]

Thanks. They are set up as cmyk swatches. No spot colours. I’ll look at the pdf options again thanks.

[John Yuelkenbeck]

When the colored text is on top of colored boxes, you may have trapping issues if there are not common colors. However, these days the printer will typically handle any trapping issues for you if it's being printed on a press, but it never hurts to verify that.

[joek63403600]

OK thanks for your help. When you say ‘common colours’ do you mean that they have a percentage of the same colour in their make-up? I really need to speak to the printer.

[John Yuelkenbeck]

By "common colors," I mean that they overlap. For instance, if your background is made up of percentages of cyan and yellow, but your text color magenta, they have nothing in common and could cause the white paper to show underneath. (In that case, your printer would probably "choke" the background colors (make them spread into the text) a little bit. If your background is cyan and yellow and your text is cyan and black, then cyan is common and you won't have white paper showing if the printing press misregisters. Again, most printers' separation software will take care of these issues for you.

I was also going to mention the "Text as Black" checkbox to see if that was causing your internal proofing problem, but looks like someone beat me to it.

[joek63403600]

Great thanks I managed to print it okay from a pdf so all good on that front. Thanks for all your tips.

[John Yuelkenbeck]

If you get a chance to mark your post as answered, that would be great. Thanks.

[rob day]

My home printer is printing all the text as just black so I am a little concerned.

Do you have Text as Black unchecked?

I would like to know if it is okay to set the black text to overprint while leaving all the coloured text as it is?

Yes you should overprint black text and the [Black] swatch is set to overprint by default in Preference. You should not overprint colored text, or at least make sure you keep Overprint Preview turned on so you see the affect of any overprints. By default objects filled and stroked with a color other than [Black] are set to knockout.

For colors that knockout, it is the printer's responsibility to correctly handle the trapping. InDesign does have a trapping function, but the traps are applied at output and not to the objects themselves, so there's really nothing you can do to control how a page is trapped downstream.