Is that so difficult to support PDF/X1a-2001 on Affinity Products?

[Trovalds]

I live in Brazil and most of the print shops here demands this PDF format to send our jobs. Yes, it is an old format, blablabla... but I liked Affinity Publisher because it is most pratical to me and foremost the affordable price besides other solutions.

Thanks in advance.

PS: sorry my bad english, not my native language.

[MikeW]

22 minutes ago, Trovalds said:

I live in Brazil and most of the print shops here demands this PDF format to send our jobs. Yes, it is an old format, blablabla... but I liked Affinity Publisher because it is most pratical to me and foremost the affordable price besides other solutions.

Thanks in advance.

PS: sorry my bad english, not my native language.

Your English is better than some native speakers I know...

As far as I remember, the updated, newer version of the PDFLib library Serif uses doesn't support the X1a-2001 format anymore, despite trying to get the library makers to put it back in.

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[MikeW]

53 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

... @MikeW -- if you have time could you check what happens when these files are analyzed by pdfToolbox? ...

I could--but it will report the same as Acrobat because callas makes the preflight stuff and licenses it to Adobe. They will be identical.

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[MikeW]

1 hour ago, Lagarto said:

I see. I am wondering whether their "Sheetfed offset (CMYK)" preflight (if there is such a preset) still defaults to failing anything beyond PDF/X-1a:2001 (that is, PDF 1.3 based exports) -- easy enough to modify but if it is still the default for CMYK in 2020 preflight routines, it might be a bit of an overkill (Adobe Acrobat Pro X is, after all, nearly a decade old product, so perfectly fine there -- later versions of Acrobat Pro -- X11 or 2017 -- or DC might have changed that but I have no regular experience of them).

Ah. Sure I'll check in the morning.

[ashf]

Problem is that the pdf library Affinity is using.
The developer no longer support 2001 and have no plan to support it again.

 

[MikeW]

9 hours ago, Lagarto said:

I see. I am wondering whether their "Sheetfed offset (CMYK)" preflight (if there is such a preset) still defaults to failing anything beyond PDF/X-1a:2001 (that is, PDF 1.3 based exports) -- easy enough to modify but if it is still the default for CMYK in 2020 preflight routines, it might be a bit of an overkill (Adobe Acrobat Pro X is, after all, nearly a decade old product, so perfectly fine there -- later versions of Acrobat Pro -- X11 or 2017 -- or DC might have changed that but I have no regular experience of them).

pdfToolbox v.9.x, which is what I have, for sheetfed offset has only the gwg 2015 installed, which uses pdf/x-4.

I would be surprised if automatic pdf checking routines have anything to do with Acrobat or pdfToolbox. Those information strings (all pertinent strings) can be parsed from the metadata contained in a pdf using any language used on a particular web site. So I suspect they are "dumb" checkers.

As you've pointed out before, there is no meaningful difference between :2001/:2003.

I cannot believe, do not believe, that any such service's rip would have any issues with a :2003 pdf. In fact, many/most/all such print establishments are using digital presses. The only factor they really need concern themselves with is flattened versus live transparency. The :2003 profile is still flattened transparency. It wouldn't take but a minute for these establishments to change the checking routines to accommodate the newer profile.

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[Trovalds]

@Lagarto thanks for your feedback. Actually, the print shop I use refuses the PDF-X1a:2003 on preflight. I'll take a look on this tool you have mentioned. It is so overkill to use only one feature. My jobs are homemade stuff like business cards and I make these from time to time only. I am not a professional designer that gets paid for my jobs. So I see in Affinity Produtcs as a perfect tool to my use basis.

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[wonderings]

10 minutes ago, Trovalds said:

@Lagarto thanks for your feedback. Actually, the print shop I use refuses the PDF-X1a:2003 on preflight. I'll take a look on this tool you have mentioned. It is so overkill to use only one feature. My jobs are homemade stuff like business cards and I make these from time to time only. I am not a professional designer that gets paid for my jobs. So I see in Affinity Produtcs as a perfect tool to my use basis.

Sounds like overkill for the type of work you are doing. No other print shops you can deal with? I have been in print a while and never dealt with any shop that demanded a certain PDF standard. Preflight will check for things like colours - RGB, Spot, etc, image quality and things like that. Your type of jobs should go in and out with little fuss. They should be able to ignore any warnings that come up in their prepress client, we use Apogee and it will give a warning and if we want we just acknowledge it by the click on a button and continue on. Any reasonably skilled person in prepress should be able to tell if a business card or flyer is going to print out ok without this level of ancient preflight. 

[ashf]

@TrovaldsYou on Mac?
if so, you cloud convert the pdf into 2001 with this.
http://zevrix.com/pdfcheckpoint.php

[wonderings]

14 minutes ago, ashf said:

@TrovaldsYou on Mac?
if so, you cloud convert the pdf into 2001 with this.
http://zevrix.com/pdfcheckpoint.php

Interesting application. Briefly looking at it I could not see how to export a PDF, only had option for TIFF, JPEG, PNG, etc. Trovalds really should not have to do anything on his/her end. These printshops are over the top requiring this level of PDF compatibility especially from such an old profile. Personally I would be shopping around for a printer who can do these simple jobs without requiring you to back save a PDF or buy a program that will do this. Really is crazy. 

[ashf]

5 minutes ago, wonderings said:

Interesting application. Briefly looking at it I could not see how to export a PDF, only had option for TIFF, JPEG, PNG, etc. Trovalds really should not have to do anything on his/her end. These printshops are over the top requiring this level of PDF compatibility especially from such an old profile. Personally I would be shopping around for a printer who can do these simple jobs without requiring you to back save a PDF or buy a program that will do this. Really is crazy. 

it can "convert" pdf to pdf with custom profile including 2001
since it's cheap tool, it's not as capable as Acrobat, but simple conversion works.

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[ashf]

Oops sorry, my memory was wrong.
It can export pdf but profile can't be changed.

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[Trovalds]

Thanks for all feedback. Bottom line: to use Affinity tools I need to:

a) have to spend some extra bucks on a third-party software ONLY to convert to PDF/X1a-2001; or

b) change my print shop to one that's use a more modern profile; or

c) quit using Affinity tools at all, spend money with a designer to make my jobs (and have a tool capable of export to PDF/X1a-2001 like Adobe or Corel ones) because I will not pay for a signature to use the tools once or twice a month or less than this.

Either alternatives are not good to me but meanwhile Seriff looks do not care to this I have no choices. At least they can put some kind of blog post about this explaining if is hard to make this, it is expensive, etc. I am not the first one to ask about this conversion.

Thanks again for all feedback. Good day everyone and stay in peace.

[ashf]

@Dave HarrisTrovalds is asking you to publish an article why Affinity doesn't support 2001.
I know it's because of PDFLib like I linked your comment above and not your fault, but it seems many people are having problem with it.

[Patrick Connor]

I would rather Dave got on with writing new features and fixing bugs, but you do you

[ashf]

Just now, Patrick Connor said:

I would rather Dave got on with writing new features and fixing bugs, but you do you

That's ok but what do you think about this problem and if it won't be fixed,  someone in Serif should explain it to users.

 

[Patrick Connor]

We don't suggest that the Affinity range writes PDF-X1a:2001 format, as we can't, so there's nothing to "fix" as such. It's an improvement request, and there are lots of those.

[ashf]

2 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

We don't suggest that the Affinity range writes PDF-X1a:2001 format, as we can't, so there's nothing to "fix" as such. It's an improvement request, and there are lots of those.

I DO understand that but I'm just suggesting you to state that Affinity won't support 2001 at somewhere to clarify to all users or who is considering to buy.

[Patrick Connor]

We do not have any duty to list or explain the things that the software doesn't do, that's faintly ridiculous.

Find me any software website anywhere that has an unsupported features list... it would be infinitely long.