If you’re looking to generate PDFs for print output then Acrobat 8 Professional with the Distiller PDF engine has quite a few choices:
[b]• Press Quality
• PDF/X-1a:2001
• PDF/X-3:2002[/b]
Starting with [b]Press Quality[/b], it is a good setting since it will also convert any device independent colours such as RGB to DeviceCMYK. The only downside for some people is the fact Press Quality is PDF 1.4 (some print providers might not like this format) and also includes OPI comments which can cause certain RIPs on the market to choke when processing the PDF file (although Acrobat 8 Professional also has fixups within the preflight engine to remove OPI and generally clean-up a PDF file).
The ISO standard [b]PDF/X-1a:2001[/b] is very similar to Press Quality but it is PDF 1.3 and adds certain metadata and output intent information to meet the ISO standards. The industry fully supports PDF/X and your print provider should be pleased if you use this standard.
The [b]PDF/X-3:2002[/b] specification is very similar to PDF/X-1a:2001 but will tag content with ICC profiles for a more controlled colour managed process. You should only submit PDF/X-3:2002 files to your print provider if you agree upon using this standard since it will involve collaboration with your print provider.
If you have the Adobe Creative Suite 3 then you might also notice the PDF/X-4 standard which is the latest setting for generating PDFs similar to those mentioned but can include live transparency, device independent colours and also layers.
This FAQ was written by [url=http://www.acrobatusers.com/community/profile/jon.bessant/]AUC Expert Jon Bessant.[/url]