Is Pages Good Enough For Professional Printing?

Lea, what make you think the output resolution will change because of the size change of the paper?

I followed your instruction in Page setup and it changed the paper size from 21 x 14,8 (A5) to

28 x 19,73. What is the initial resolution do you think?

I am glad though that you have the scheme working for you though.

I followed your instruction in Page setup and it changed the paper size from 21 x 14,8 (A5) to 28 x 19,73. What is the initial resolution do you think? I am glad though that you have the scheme working for you though.

Resolution is not an attribute of the dimensions of the design space, but

1. an attribute of the address space of a digital graphic device, and

2. an attribute of a raster image.

Modern imaging models scale the dimensions of the design space to the dimensions of the user space (the address space of the rasterising digital graphic device) on demand. If this were not so, it would be geometrically impossible to design a folio edition for rasterising at 2500dpi on a large format CTP imagesetter while working at low resolution and small forms on studio displays and studio printers.

/hh

Can you give me a little bit more detail on the workflow? I was planning on having to re-design the entire thing in Quark, or Pagemaker, but it sounds as if that's not necessary.

1. I design the layout in pages and export a PDF "Best" file

2. Pre-press reviews the PDF and does what?

3. They submit what to the printer?

Adobe acquired PageMaker from Aldus in 1994 and effectively discontinued development in favour of InDesign. PageMaker's code was designed for an internal conversion from the application data structures to PostScript, using an internal PostScript driver (not the system PostScript driver). QuarkPress was designed in precisely the same way.

Adobe retrofitted an internal PS to PDF conversion to PageMaker, and Quark retrofitted an internal PS to PDF conversion to QuarkXPress 6. Quark licenced the technology from GlobalGraphics, formerly Harlequin. Adobe used inhouse technology. What you get in either case is a conversion through PostScript that supports no ICC file format, no SFNT Unicode file format, and no transparency.

Absolutely awful, in my opinion.

/hh

Henrik Holmegaard wrote:

There is no way to save out of Pages to pdf without flattening the transparency.

Proposition: In any save path, transparency is flattened in saving.

Test of proposition: Apple Pages '08 and Apple Mac OS X 10.4.11 as platform.

1. Launch system software and application software.

2. Insert first composition frame, select Apple Hoefler antiqua at 24 US pt, enter 'Type', leave default colour, leave default opacity.

3. Insert second composition frame, select Apple Hoefler antiqua at 24 US pt, enter 'Transparency', change default colour to rubrication red, change opacity to 50%.

4. Select e.g. File > Print > PDF > Save as PDF, name file 'Test', and select folder.

5. Launch Acrobat Professional 6 (first version with ISO 15930 PDF/X-3 verification), check the PDF version (: 1.4), check at high magnification (: no rasterisation), check that the source character string can be synthesised (: it can).

As posted previously, if transparency is applied, PDF 1.4 is automatically configured unless the path is ISO 15930 PDF/X-3 that does not support transparency (PDF 1.3 has an opaque imaging model, not a transparency imaging model). This is a simplistic test, but it is nonetheless a test.

Because Apple Quartz has applied transparency since 2000, and because there the matrix of system versions and application versions is somewhat monstrous, the notion of testing is somewhat notional 🙂.

/hh

Henrik

You are testing nothing. Unless the transparent type is overlapping bitmaps it remains vector.

Where is your reflection or shadow, both of which are transparent bitmaps?

Go away and come back with a real test.

Peter

You are testing nothing. Unless the transparent type is overlapping bitmaps it remains vector.

Did you not post that transparency is simply not supported in the system PDF service?

Go away and come back when your generalisations are backed by genuine information.

/hh

Did you ever ran Pages ?

I tried to print as PDF and as PDF/X, under 10.4.11 and 10.5.8.
In both cases, the result was PDF 1.3 .

How are you getting a PDF 1.4 file from Pages ?

You are flooding the forum with your logorrhea but it seems that you didn't test the app.
Please stay in your clouds if you don't apply your theories on reald world.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 21 août 2010 23:33:19

How are you getting a PDF 1.4 file from Pages

Yvan,

Do you have a copy of Adobe Acrobat Professional, or some other software auditing solution?

Peter is posting sweeping generalisations, colour management as such does not work, transparency as such does not work, glyph variants as such are not supported, and so on and so forth. But a technical discussion is not possible, because he does not know enough. Please, stop posting sweeping generalisations; sift the supported from the unsupported by posting test matrices, and state the technical specs by which the arguments are arrived at.

You are flooding the forum with your logorrhea

I am not sure, but by my book this language is inappropriate even in a French bar.

When you insert a piece of paper into a typewriter, you have a fixed format medium and only the marks made by impact on that medium matter. When you start a document in a modern imaging model, what in fact happens has only the remotest similarity to inserting a piece of paper into a typewriter. I know you are over 60, and I know you are a potter, but for heaven's sake step into the twenty-first century 🙂.

/hh

Henrik

Not TRUE!!!!

I have posted every time, as possible, the transparency and resolution issues are with reflections, shadows and transparencies overlapping bitmaps. Even here.

The problems with color management is not that there isn't any, which there is, but that it is opaque, hidden and without verification. It also requires individually checking every item with nothing flagging where problems arise. Which is insane.

You need to have other tools such as Acrobat Pro to just get warnings of what has gone wrong behind your back.

You Henrik are mudding the water as always by claiming solutions which you never demonstrate. Despite interminable postings that rarely ever stay on subject.

Peter

5. Launch Acrobat Professional 6 (first version with ISO 15930 PDF/X-3 verification), check the PDF version (: 1.4), check at high magnification (: no rasterisation), check that the source character string can be synthesised (: it can).

As posted previously, if transparency is applied, PDF 1.4 is automatically configured unless the path is ISO 15930 PDF/X-3 that does not support transparency (PDF 1.3 has an opaque imaging model, not a transparency imaging model). This is a simplistic test, but it is nonetheless a test.

Note that the point is not that PDF is saved as ISO 15930 PDF/X-3, but that a software auditing solution is used that supplies per-object information and information about the PDF version. If one wants to develop a matrice for discussion, and not as here a single simple instance, then this is time-consuming and complicated.

In general, a modern imaging model is nothing at all like paper. It is not simply that a digital master document is scalable in resolution and in size, it is much more that the tie between the author and the audience is ISO 15076 colour information and ISO-IEC 10646 character information. The author tags the objects in the pagination with this content information.

The audience identifies the digital master document in abstract archival space by its content of character information, accesses the digital master document, and images it on the actual address spaces of digital graphic devices by its content of colour information. If there is any resemblance however remote to paper, then I for one fail to see where?

On the one hand, developers don't have better metaphors at this point than the obsolete metaphor of a desktop and a light table on which you pastes columns of type and sheets of separated film. On the other hand, customers, even in those cases where the software in fact supports content tagging, don't use it. How many use ISO 19005 PDF/A? Apple does not even support it.

/hh

The problems with color management is not that there isn't any, which there is, but that it is opaque, hidden and without verification.

This is true. On the other hand, exposing the steps in configuring a ColourWorld for paginated publishing is enormously complex. You can set rendering intents per object in some newer software, but to do this right you have to know more than most prepress technicians. In 2004, it was discussed whether to advocate a wizard approach. For instance, if the user when setting up the page selects a long-run printing process such as offset newsprint or gravure magasine, then it the ISO reference colour spaces are shown and spot colours cannot be chosen. But this already flounders because of competitive considerations, for instance, gamut mapping is different for each different ICC print profiling software, so whose gamut mapping is to be chosen? And so on and so forth. At the end of the day, the only thing that is left is education of the everyday enduser, as best one can 🙂.

/hh

/hh

*Mrs Holmegaard:* +"Henrik, do you have the time?"+

Henrik: +"Note that the point is not that PDF is saved as ISO 15930 PDF/X-3, but that a software auditing solution is used that supplies per-object information and information about the PDF version. If one wants to develop a matrice for discussion, and not as here a single simple instance, then this is time-consuming and complicated.+

+In general, a modern imaging model is nothing at all like paper. It is not simply that a digital master document is scalable in resolution and in size, it is much more that the tie between the author and the audience is ISO 15076 colour information and ISO-IEC 10646 character information. The author tags the objects in the pagination with this content information.+

+The audience identifies the digital master document in abstract archival space by its content of character information, accesses the digital master document, and images it on the actual address spaces of digital graphic devices by its content of colour information. If there is any resemblance however remote to paper, then I for one fail to see where?+

+On the one hand, developers don't have better metaphors at this point than the obsolete metaphor of a desktop and a light table on which you pastes columns of type and sheets of separated film. On the other hand, customers, even in those cases where the software in fact supports content tagging, don't use it. How many use ISO 19005 PDF/A? Apple does not even support it."+

*Mrs Holmegaard:* +"Never mind… my fault for asking"+

Hi Peter

As Henrik didn't respond , may I have your response ?

Are you able to generate PDF 1.4 from Pages ?

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) dimanche 22 août 2010 15:29:05

Henrik Holmegaard wrote:

How are you getting a PDF 1.4 file from Pages

Yvan,

Do you have a copy of Adobe Acrobat Professional, or some other software auditing solution?

No and I have no plan to get Adobe an Euro.
Compare the prices of Adobe products in France and their price in the USA and you will understand why.

What I know, is that I am unable to create a PDF 4 document from Pages.
So, I can't guess how any tool would be able to enhance what is badly embedded in the PDF documents issued from Pages.

You are flooding the forum with your logorrhea

I am not sure, but by my book this language is inappropriate even in a French bar.

You forget a well known sentence : "Impossible n‘est pas Français".

If a word is available in a dictionary, it's not to sleep in it, it's to be used. So, even if you didn't like to read that, I repeat that some of us are tired of your logorrhea. (no,it's not a sexual disease).

When you insert a piece of paper into a typewriter, you have a fixed format medium and only the marks made by impact on that medium matter. When you start a document in a modern imaging model, what in fact happens has only the remotest similarity to inserting a piece of paper into a typewriter. I know you are over 60, and I know you are a potter, but for heaven's sake step into the twenty-first century 🙂.

I apologize but for an atheist like me, 'heaven' means nothing. I'm living on earth. This is why I urged you to climb down from your clouds.

As far as I know, if somebody decide to buy iWork to use Pages, chances are really low that he buy also Adobe Acrobat Pro.

I'm daily on a forum dedicated to inDesign. I will not described myself as an expert but after ruling two catalogs from A to Z, I know a bit of the modern printing area and at this time, I'm only interested by paper media. Read a book on an electronic device is something which I don't plan to do.

So, back to the original problem, as the PDF issued from Pages contain some item built as 72 dpi bitmaps, I have some difficulties to guess that even Acrobat Pro will be able to get rid of that.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) dimanche 22 août 2010 15:59:06

I am unable to create a PDF 4 document from Pages.

Yvan,

There is no such thing as PDF 4.0. There is PDF 1.x where the latest is 1.7. And there is ISO 32000 aka PDF 2.0. We may get to PDF 4.0 in a couple of decades, though 🙂.

If you want to create PDF 1.4 in the PDF context of Apple Mac OS X 10.4.11 and Apple Pages 3, start a blank document, insert a composition frame (: text box), type the word 'Transparency', select the word, set the colour to something other than the default e.g. a rich red, apply some opacity e.g. 50%, select Export > PDF > Best, set the name to Transparency, open the PDF in Apple Preview, select Tools > Get Info > PDF Version and read 🙂. If in France they sell the selfsame software as they sell in Danmark, then methinks you will read PDF Version: 1.4.

This is a very, very, very simple set of objects for an opacity test, no stacking, no device colour, no combination of CIE colour spaces and colourant models, and so forth. It simply shows that the system switches to PDF 1.4 if transparency is detected in the source data.

/hh

Mrs Holmegaard: "Never mind… my fault for asking"

Actually, not a bad spoof at all 🙂.

Henrik