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Acrobat & InDesign do not trap the same, while they should...

michaelejahn
Registered: Apr 26 2006
Posts: 232

Acrobat Pro 7 won't output a trapped PDF using the same method and settings as Indesign.

Both programs identical trap preset dialog and option to print to Adobe PDF with settings for Color: "In-Rip Seps" and Trapping: "Adobe Built-in".

Indesign outputs a nice trapped trapped file with these setting but Acrobat Pro does not.

In testing, same file(s) were attempted to be trapped from Acrobat Pro and Indesign. The reason to desire trapping in Acrobat is it is a one step process. Indesign won't trap placed PDF's so we use Illustrator to open them and copy and paste the objects into Indesign.

InDesign then traps beautifully.

Background- customer is a screen printer working with small spot color vector files requiring relatively large (.5pt - 2pt.) overlap between adjacent colors. In the past, they have manually applied traps in the illustration program rather than employ a trapping solution do to simplicity of much of our output and the control it gives us. Of course, when the file with 1,500 object arrives, they need another way to go - which is to use the Adobe trapping.

Please advise - is this simply a fact, or is there some update upgrade or some hard to find setting the customer is missing ?

Michael Jahn
Application Support Specialist
Compose Systems Inc, USA.
4740 Northgate Blvd. Suite 100
Sacramento, CA 95834
Tel: (916) 920-3838 ext 102
Fax: (916) 923-6776
Email: michaelejahn [at] composeusa [dot] com
Web: www.composeusa.com

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 7.0.9, Windows
Registered: Sep 24 2005
Posts: 252
Hi Michael,

Personally I've never tried generating a trap via Acrobat but I can indeed see the requirement. I'm sure this will only work when outputting a postscript stream down to an output device and not Distiller but I could be wrong.

I'm not even around a RIP at the moment (not even an AGFA one [smile]) so I can't check unfortunately.

Regards,

Jon

I've been using Acrobat since v1.0 and still get amazed by its power. An Acrobat ACE since 1999

michaelejahn
Registered: Apr 26 2006
Posts: 232
Actually, neither of these approaches actually creates any trap objects - these approaches simply insert lines of code which are then executed in RIPS that perform IRT (InRIP Trapping).

I believe that the objects are created inside the PDF.

I am not personally interested in learning about or using any RIP technology that would depend on PostScript creation, Distiller processing or PostScript RIPing - - although I imagine that one might have soutions that work well using this approach.

There are several rips that can be set to ignore these lines of code, and they often rasterize all elements and then trap according to some settings in the RIP or some post-RIP application.

There are several vendors who do indeed offer solutions that actually trap a PDF -- you know, where in the end there are new objects created that act as traps.

I am not sure if AGFA still offers such a solution.

Michael Jahn
Application Support Specialist
Compose Systems Inc, USA.
4740 Northgate Blvd. Suite 100
Sacramento, CA 95834
Tel: (916) 920-3838 ext 102
Fax: (916) 923-6776
Email: michaelejahn [at] composeusa [dot] com
Web: www.composeusa.com