Need true grayscale output for commercial printer from Affinity Publisher 2

[TypeNerd]

I'm on mac running OS Sonoma 14.3.1.

My document is set up color: grayscale/8 profile: generic grayscale.

My images are all grayscale tiffs. My text styles have all been specified as 100% K with no other colors.

My printer needs a PDF/X pdf. I have tried every combination in the pdf settings I can think of, but the pdf always exports in cmyk color. What am I missing?

[Joansz]

I'm on a PC running Windows 10 and I'm getting a preflight error "Document color profile not suitable for PDF/X. Yet it does export gray scale and I started with color images. I got the error selecting either gray/8 or gray/16 in document setup. The document does export grayscale for both doc setups. When I export, I do have to select convert color spaces, otherwise it doesn't convert to grayscale. So here's my suggestion, if you haven't selected that option because you started with gray gifs, select it anyway | or if you do have it selected, unselect.

Edited February 12, 2024 by Joansz
typo

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[TypeNerd]

This is making me insane.

You are right. If I choose a CMYK/8 color profile, I can then get a true K-only pdf with press-ready option and choose gray. But if I choose PDF/X, it outputs in color.

I can do an ink correction in Acrobat Professional and get back to a true black output, and will do that. But I just couldn't believe it wasn't possible.

Adobe is never getting any more of my money than what I have to pay for Acrobat, (because of this problem!) but I sure hope Affinity fixes this one day. I love Affinity otherwise.

[loukash]

24 minutes ago, TypeNerd said:

I sure hope Affinity fixes this one day

I'm not sure if Serif can even fix or work around all the issues that PDFlib is having  

[TypeNerd]

Thanks to all for your informed and timely response on this! You all rock!

[Joansz]

1 hour ago, TypeNerd said:

If I choose a CMYK/8 color profile, I can then get a true K-only pdf with press-ready option and choose gray. But if I choose PDF/X, it outputs in color.

I can do an ink correction in Acrobat Professional and get back to a true black output, and will do that. But I just couldn't believe it wasn't possible.

Adobe is never getting any more of my money than what I have to pay for Acrobat, (because of this problem!) but I sure hope Affinity fixes this one day. I love Affinity otherwise.

[Is the reason your printer wants PDF/X is because they have an ink printer? If so, the printer would need to be told how much of each ink is required to get black. Since your images and I assume text is gray scale, could you make your document color profile CMYK and then export it to gray/8 or 16?] Oops, you did try that. Never mind.

Edited February 13, 2024 by Joansz
Misread the post I'm replying to, so have to retract

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[loukash]

10 hours ago, lacerto said:

[Acrobat Pro] still also available as a 32-bit app on a perpetual license, though I am not sure how it is made to be operable on modern macs

Not possible.  
I still keep my various old Intel and PPC Macs alive for a reason… Particularly both my Intel MBPs running El Capitan with Adobe CS5.5 and Acrobat Pro X. The workflow is not even all that complex, since I can easily exchange files via drang & drop and run the old apps via Screen Sharing.

The best workaround on Catalina and newer likely would be running a Win version of Acrobat X in an emulator. I'm not sure if a free Wine based emulator would suffice though. (I was able to make the Win version of Expression Media 2 work in a Wine based emulator on my MBA running Ventura, but it's not very stable.)

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[loukash]

2 minutes ago, lacerto said:

Have you tested, or is this just based on assumptions?

Tested up to Acrobat X.

2 minutes ago, lacerto said:

Adobe still sells Adobe Acrobat Pro 2020 stating that it is compatible with macOS post-Mojave, including Sonoma.

Oh, I see! 
I forgot about that, thanks.  

Still, it's over my budget for what I'd need it. Every now and then launching Acrobat X still does it for me.

[loukash]

8 minutes ago, lacerto said:

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/system-requirements-acrobat-2020.html

Quote

Acrobat Pro 2020 (Acrobat Standard 2020 is not available on macOS)

• Intel processor
• macOS v10.14, macOS v10.15, macOS v11^‡, macOS v12, macOS v13, or macOS v14 (Sonoma)

Then it should run on M# processors in Rosetta mode. Usually this shouldn't be an issue; e.g. I'm launching APh in Rosetta mode whenever I want to use the old Google Nik plugins, and I can't tell any difference.

[loukash]

11 minutes ago, lacerto said:

1 hour ago, loukash said:

Not possible.  

Have you tested, or is this just based on assumptions?

Now I see why there was a misunderstanding. You wrote:

12 hours ago, lacerto said:

Acrobat Pro -- still also available as a 32-bit app on a perpetual license

Acrobat X was 32-bit, hence I assumed this is what you meant.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[loukash]

9 minutes ago, lacerto said:

whether they have a genuine 64-bit build for macOS for the actual app

I don't know. Acrobat X apparently still has some crucial elements that are 32-bit, hence the Mojave end of line. But some parts are likely 64-bit because Get Info on El Capitan has the "Open in 32-mode" checkbox.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[Joansz]

I'm on Windows 10 64 bit and have been using Acrobat Pro 2020 since 2020 and have had no problems. Hopefully it will work that way on a Mac.

[TypeNerd]

Yes, sadly, it appears my only solution at this time is to use cmyk color profile in Affinity Publisher 2, export PDFX1a which the publisher needs, and then use Acrobat Pro to make it grayscale again. Pretty ridiculous, but it does work. (Sigh)

Longing for the day I can ditch my last subscription to Adobe and let them greedy guys make their money elsewhere.

Just FYI, Adobe Acrobat Pro works fine on mac OS, and has for years.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[TypeNerd]

Thank you. Yes, the frustrating thing is that I have done the work already, all images are 8-bit grayscale tiffs, all my text is specified at 100%K with no other color. And then my pdf turns it all to color at the end with PDFX1a. But I did check with the printer, and the reason they specify that pdf setting is that USUALLY that is the only way to get true grayscale output (from Adobe InDesign). They are content with any pdf output that is grayscale, so I will go ahead without the PDFX1a setting. Thanks, everyone for sharing my pain and helping to work on the problem.

[thomaso]

6 hours ago, lacerto said:

You could try using the following setting to create a DeviceGray PDF. You need to define your black elements using Grayscale color model (in Colors panel). The point is to leave "Embed ICC profiles" unchecked. That messes up a job because it makes it ICC-dependent, and if your printer asks for grayscale PDF/X-1a, they basically want a job with 1 ink and no color profiles.

1 hour ago, TypeNerd said:

Yes, the frustrating thing is that I have done the work already, all images are 8-bit grayscale tiffs, all my text is specified at 100%K with no other color. And then my pdf turns it all to color at the end with PDFX1a.

What am I misunderstanding when I export successfully as PDF/X-1a with 1 ink channel only with the profile "Schwarze Druckfarbe - PSO Coated v3" (see attached)? Can't a printer not simply ignore this profile, especially if the images are placed in the layout as grayscale already without CMY conversion, like in the OP's case? – The .afpub is setup with the "Generic Gray Profile", for text the default black swatch in the Swatches Panel was used – unexpectedly this gets displayed in the Colours Panel as RGB, not Grayscale or K only.

Schwarze Druckfarbe - PSO Coated v3.icm

 ->

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[MegWizzard42]

I'm also having this problem and have done what I can to convert to greyscale in Acrobat Pro, but every file I supply, the printers are still saying it is in CMYK. At this point, I'm probably just going to give them all my money to convert it themselves, but it's very frustrating because I have no idea what I'm doing wrong! 

They are sending me this screenshot of output preview:

Whereas when I open the same tool, I see this:

Does anyone have any idea what's going on?