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Can you separate colors with Acrobat XI Pro for Mac?

New Here ,
Nov 16, 2018 Nov 16, 2018

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Can you separate colors With Acrobat XI Pro for Mac? If so how is it done not the the same as Acrobat X when  you can select postcript option?

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Nov 16, 2018 Nov 16, 2018

Confirming that yes, Acrobat does provide the means of printing separations via the Advanced Print Setup => Output screen for PostScript printers only. You have the choice of Composite, Composite Gray, Separations, and In-RIP Separations under Output=>Color. Separations provides for Acrobat doing the separations itself, producing 4 or more pages (depending upon whether spot colors are defined and used in the PDF file) of PostScript for each page of PDF. In-RIP Separations causes non-separated Po

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LEGEND ,
Nov 16, 2018 Nov 16, 2018

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You can make colour separations when you are actually printing to a real PostScript printer.  Not to a file, so far as I know.

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Nov 16, 2018 Nov 16, 2018

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Confirming that yes, Acrobat does provide the means of printing separations via the Advanced Print Setup => Output screen for PostScript printers only. You have the choice of Composite, Composite Gray, Separations, and In-RIP Separations under Output=>Color. Separations provides for Acrobat doing the separations itself, producing 4 or more pages (depending upon whether spot colors are defined and used in the PDF file) of PostScript for each page of PDF. In-RIP Separations causes non-separated PostScript to be sent to the printer with the option specified for the RIP to do the separations itself.

Yes, there is a terribly kludgy way to produce a pre-separated PDF file under Windows. Print to the Adobe PDF PostScript printer driver instance, specifying Separations (not In-RIP Separations). That having been said, pre-separated PDF print workflows are really 1990s type workflows and are most strongly discouraged these days.

          - Dov

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

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New Here ,
Jan 26, 2022 Jan 26, 2022

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I'm trying to produce separations of a four spot color design that I can feed to cutter/plotter software to cut out of four different sheets of vinyl. Since "pre-separated PDF print workflows are really 1990s type workflows and are most strongly discouraged these days." what workflow would you suggest?

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Community Expert ,
Jan 27, 2022 Jan 27, 2022

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Since "pre-separated PDF print workflows are really 1990s type workflows and are most strongly discouraged these days." what workflow would you suggest?


By @grovberg

This is probably the application, which still need separation at the "design phase". What Dov means is that when you send a print job to a professional printer, let the printer do the separation as he is best qualified to decide how this needs to be done. In the 90th you did send films to the printers/editors who did mount those in the designs, for example to insert an advert in a magazine.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

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New Here ,
Jan 27, 2022 Jan 27, 2022

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Thanks for your kind response, but I understand all of that entirely. My frustration comes from the assumption that the kind of  commerical-scale offset printing you describe is the only reason one might want to produce separations. There are many circumstance both artistic and logistical where having access to digital separations is helpful during the design phase, which (despite what you may have heard) continue to be used even in years that start with a 2. It is frustrating to know that the feature still exists under the hood, but we just don't have access to it anymore (only on Macs), and the response is that "You're wrong for wanting that." because everyone at Adobe seems to think offset printing is the only way to produce art.

 

Nonetheless, I really do appreciate your kind response.

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LEGEND ,
Jan 27, 2022 Jan 27, 2022

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You'd use a tool to print separations from the PDF, rather than separate the PDF and print the separations. Acrobat can do that - or does that not work for you?

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New Here ,
Jan 27, 2022 Jan 27, 2022

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But I don't need printouts of the separations, I need vector designs I can feed into the cutter/plotter software.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 27, 2022 Jan 27, 2022

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But I don't need printouts of the separations, I need vector designs I can feed into the cutter/plotter software.


By @grovberg

Yes, your file needs to be prepared for this at the beginning. You can't create a vector file out of Acrobat. It must be a vector file, created by Adobe Illustrator, for example. And then you must have a correct plotter driver where you can print to.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

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New Here ,
Jan 27, 2022 Jan 27, 2022

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My files  are vectors, created natively in Illustrator. I don't know if other cutters work this way (you're not the first to assume so), but you don't send the design to the cutter/plotter via the Print command, it's a plug-in for Illustrator that just passes the currently open vector design to it's own software that operates the cutter.

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LEGEND ,
Jan 27, 2022 Jan 27, 2022

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Since you have an AI plugin I feel you need to stick to AI. Don't involve Acrobat at all. And remember Illustrator is not a general PDF editor. 

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New Here ,
Jan 27, 2022 Jan 27, 2022

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Oh sorry, I confess I just got to this forum via a Google search and didn't recognize I was in the Acrobat-specific forum (Dov posted similar answers in many forums on this subject and I just picked on at random to reply to). I have no desire to involve Acrobat if I don't have to, but also will happily use Acrobat if I need to. I'm happy to do whatever is required to produce my separations.

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Community Expert ,
Nov 16, 2018 Nov 16, 2018

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As a proof of concept I have created an Enfocus PitStop Pro action list that can take a PDF, retain it as PDF and create “separations” of each printing plate as a new page in the file (each plate re-mapped to black on a new page). It works great for a single page document, however for multiple page files it is best to split to single page files first. It is a hack, but it works and avoids printing, PostScript, Distiller etc.

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Community Expert ,
Nov 17, 2018 Nov 17, 2018

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It is possible to create a separated PS using actions. You would need to open this with distiller. But avoiding the print dialog box will let you set up a workflow which minimises the places to make errors. So similar to what Stephen did but with Acrobat only.

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