hard to trust what I am seeing in this program regarding pdf's

[gabagoo]

I have been stung numerous times by Flexi and pdf files. many times I have been lucky and have averted disaster.
It seems when bringing in pdf files that if the file needs a font, Flexi seems to disregard and insert one of its own.
I need to get into a habit of opening them in acrobat first to verify, but with time constraints and multi tasking, it is easy to forget.

 

[Jim Doggett]

That's not just a Flexi problem. All programs will use a font substitute table when importing PDFs. Adobe protects the font from being copied from the PDF, as it should, legally.

So the solution is to have folks outline (convert to curves) all fonts before PDFing, EPSing, etc. any file they send to you for production / importing.

 

[gabagoo]

That's not just a Flexi problem. All programs will use a font substitute table when importing PDFs. Adobe protects the font from being copied from the PDF, as it should, legally.

So the solution is to have folks outline (convert to curves) all fonts before PDFing, EPSing, etc. any file they send to you for production / importing.

Yes indeed it is the solution, but many files are coming from a clients designer and we never communicate with them. It's the same old thing... I pay for my mistakes and theirs it seems in order to get jobs out in time.
If you rag on the customner to much, they dont want to come back, so it is a delicate matter.

 

[Jim Doggett]

Yeah; it's a slippery slope any time you deal with clients that do not understand what "production ready" means. If it looks good in their Web browser, then why not on the side of a building? LOL.

Other workarounds I've used are:

Zoom in on the PDF and take a screen capture at the best possible quality, and then vectorize from it.

Or ...

Rasterize in Photoshop at a very high resolution, and then save that our for printing and/or vectorizing.

Maybe others have tricks too. Anyone????

Best,

Jim

 

[J Hill Designs]

place it in illy using the doc's workaround and export as eps?

 

[HaroldDesign]

+1 placing in Illy and flattening transparency with "outline fonts" checked.
Another option that works extremely well is the Pitstop plugin for Acrobat professional.

 

[Jim Doggett]

+1 placing in Illy and flattening transparency with "outline fonts" checked.
Another option that works extremely well is the Pitstop plugin for Acrobat professional.

(posts!!!)

 

[GP]

+1 placing in Illy and flattening transparency with "outline fonts" checked.
Another option that works extremely well is the Pitstop plugin for Acrobat professional.

Worth the price of admission, right there!

Fred, up my membership for another 5 years!

GP

 

[d fleming]

In signlab I set my preference for pdfs to convert all text to graphics. No problems.

 

[gabagoo]

That's not just a Flexi problem. All programs will use a font substitute table when importing PDFs. Adobe protects the font from being copied from the PDF, as it should, legally.

So the solution is to have folks outline (convert to curves) all fonts before PDFing, EPSing, etc. any file they send to you for production / importing.

I know what your saying Jim, but my Flexi for whatever reason does not inform me of missing font info and substitutes fonts whithout my knowledge. I know illy and Signlab prompt you with a warning and options, but my Flexi does not.

 

[Gino]

We often times get third party files or whatever from a client's customer or client's customers' art department. We will not accept any responsibility for these kinds of mistakes. We demand a hard copy.

Not only can't you guarantee fonts and such.... you can't be sure the colors you're seeing are the same that the designer, the proofreader or the end user sees on their monitor. An initialed hard-copy from everyone in on the 'decision making' process has to accompany each file or they waive their rights to having us re-produce it because of their inability for quality control.

We just had one a few weeks ago, where the woman and the man were both looking at my monitor for the final proof. The both liked it and when I made the print-out from our desktop printer, they said..... wait... that blue is lighter than on your screen and I said.... No, it's not.

Went back into my office and put the paper aside of the monitor and it was dead on, but they were standing behind me and evidently the slight elevation made it look different from what I was seeing sitting there. I knew this about the monitor, but never realized people didn't have the same visual I had by only being a foot or so higher looking down.


HARD COPY.