PDF/X-1a:2001? Publisher V.2 export PDF

[Harrington]

Hello Everyone,

The project that will not die: client's printer is insisting on a PDF/X-1a:2001 format for the exported PDF of the book. Publisher only offers PDF/X-1a:2003 as an export option. Went into Acrobat Pro and converted the file to a PDF/X-1a format. Printer won't take it because it isn't specifically the 2001 rather than 2003 version. What the heck?

I'm at my wits' end, (a short trip right now), and am looking for a way out that doesn't involve firing up my 12 year old Mac Pro and completely redoing the book in InDesign 6. Any Ideas?

[joe_l]

7 hours ago, Harrington said:

Went into Acrobat Pro and converted the file to a PDF/X-1a format. Printer won't take it because it isn't specifically the 2001 rather than 2003 version. What the heck?

Indeed. What the heck. Your client's printer needs some updates. AFAIK the PDFLib Serif uses, is not going to support X-1a anymore (or never had?).

I wonder why there are problems while converting the PDF. Not the best idea perhaps: Place a PDF made from Publisher in Indesign and export from there for testing purposes. If the printer is happy with that ... fine ... although a lot of work.

[lacerto]

If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro, you should be able to convert to PDF/X-1a. The standard conversion applies version 2001:

You may need to modify the factory preset preflight converter routine if you need to assign some other color profile, but as this is just color intent, the values are not changed even if the default Coated Fogra 39 is retained.

Note that whenever you export from Affinity apps, transparency flattening is done by rasterization so if you initially export from Affinity apps using a method that does not allow transparencies (like PDF/X-1 or PDF/X-3), you will end up having rasterized transparencies. Also, please note Affinity specific "compatibility rules" so if your document has PDFs placed, their PDF version needs to be the same or lower than that of the PDF produced, otherwise you will get rasterized content with distorted color values.

Distorted color values may also result if you have any PDFs containing transparencies placed within the document, even if version compatibility is retained.

Anyway, you might want to try as the first option a workflow where you export from an Affinity app using the default PDF 1.7 ("Press ready") preset, and then take this to Adobe Acrobat and convert to PDF/X-1a (to retain flattened transparencies as vectors). I tested this is, and the result was PDF/X-1a:2001 verified file which should be fine with your printer. Note that the default PDF/X1a verified in Adobe Acrobat verifies for PDF/X-1a:2003 (and also approves PDF/X-1a:2001), so to verify specifically for PDF/X-1a:2001, you need to modify the default preflight verifier routine.

[Harrington]

joe_I: Good to know I am not the only one perplexed by this outdated requirement! I will try the InDesign PDF Place idea. I only tried the Open route which of course did not work. I did find a piece of software which purports to have converted the file to a 2001 format--Scribus. I've come across this software before as a book layout option along with one or two others that are optimized for this type of on-demand printing. I have run my existing pdf through the program and it swears that the new PDF is in PDF/X-1a:2001. Worth a trial upload with the client's printer.

lacerto: Thank you for these specific suggestions. After reading your post three times, I now understand what you're saying. Fortunately, the only placements in the book's interior are icons and non-table tables created in Designer. (The tables were created manually rather than through the table builder in Designer, so they're just lines and type.) The file is simply grayscale, so I keep trying to stay out of a coated stock situation when creating a profile in Pro. I haven't seen the "Convert PDF document to ..." drop down, but I'm using an ancient version of Pro (Pro X), so it may not be available as a back save.

Thank you both for the advice. I'll go see what is what.