On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 4:48 PM, John Culleton wrote:

...

At least two commercial printers that I use prefer or insist on

On Friday 30 October 2009 12:03:33 luigi scarso wrote: the

...

format PDF X/1-a:2001 output. The only way I have found to produce such in TeX without a pass through Adobe Acrobat Distiller or the shareware program Pstill is via the package pdfx.sty authored by CV Radhakrishnan and Han The Thanh. This in turn uses some other files such as xmpincl.sty.

I wonder if this setup could be incorporated into some flavor of Context? Or even pdftex? I prefer not to live within the strictures of pdflatex.

is not Ghostscript OK ? (I have seen http://www.ghostscript.com/pipermail/gs-devel/2009- September/008566.html) Yes, I started that thread also. It seems that the spec can be met via Ghostscript. What is also needed is the internal labeling of the file as pdf X/1-a:2001, and some xml add-ins.

The prepress staff will look at the file and if it is not labeled correctly run it through Distiller, which can degrade text and barcodes by converting them to bitmaps. LSI handles hundreds of pdf cover files each week, many of which are out of spec. If it does not look like X/1-a:2001 they will bitmap it, and in the process mess it up to a degree, or so I am told. So getting the file within spec is necessary but it also has to look like it is in spec. Their Customer Service Rep specifically mentioned Ghostscript as producing non-acceptable pdf files. This is not the only hoop to be leapt through in dealing with LSI. they have a limit on total ink coverage that is more restrictive than the usual formulation for CMYK rich black. They want only %240 total coverage so I cobbled up CMYK 60,40,40,100 which adds up to 240%. In brief, they are a royal pain. But they have a near-monopoly on POD printing for bookstores in the US and their pricing for Amazon beats anyone including Amazon's own subsidy Createspace. Hans: The needed files and the documentation for pdfx.sty are located here: http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/pdfx/ The files in the package include: README glyphtounicode-cmr.tex manifest.txt pdfa-1b.xmp pdfx-1a.xmp pdfx.pdf pdfx.sty small2e.pdf small2e.tex small2e.xmpdata -- John Culleton "Create Book Covers with Scribus" http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html

John Culleton wrote:

...

The needed files and the documentation for pdfx.sty are located here: http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/pdfx/

The files in the package include:

README glyphtounicode-cmr.tex manifest.txt pdfa-1b.xmp pdfx-1a.xmp pdfx.pdf pdfx.sty small2e.pdf small2e.tex small2e.xmpdata

hm, so you want me to reverse engineer latex code ... (which

On Friday 30 October 2009 14:24:10 Hans Hagen wrote: probably

costs me more time than figuring it out from specs)

anyhow, from the filename i conclude that

- it has to do with unicode maps (is already supported) - xmp data (this big xml blob in pdf files)

xmp is not yet supported but is probably as trivial (as it is useless); i'll look it up in the spec

Hans

The major thing about pdf x/1-a:2001 is that it limits what you can do, for example no RGB, no transparencies as such, no layers and file must be flattened. Fonts must be embedded but that is required in any case. The documentation for pdfx goes through the source section by section and discusses what each does. HTH -- John Culleton "Create Book Covers with Scribus" http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html

John Culleton wrote:

...

The documentation for pdfx goes through the source section by section and discusses what each does.

it's easier for me to preflight a file and see what acrobat reports

btw, things like color and fonts are easy as one can configure

On Monday 02 November 2009 08:36:41 Hans Hagen wrote: this; and

there might be a few additional resources needed but that's easy

in my experience the problem is more with embedded graphics and these are out of our control

Hans

----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma- ade.com

| www.pragma-pod.nl

-----------------------------------------------------------------

___________________________________________________________________________

________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net

___________________________________________________________________________

________

There are two tasks for crating a PDF x/1-a:2001 file. First limits must be imposed per the standard. Second the pdf file must "look" like a PDF x1-a:2001 file to the printer and his software. The tag at the top of the file is of course trivial. But there is some xml code embedded also. If a dummy file were created in e.g., pdf 1.4, and then a copy were made in Distiller with PDF X/1-a:2001, then a differential analysis could show out the elements (e.g., xml code) spelled out above. In Linux I would use the diff command but I don't think that is available to Windows users. Scribus will soon produce PDF X/1-a:2001 documents. It is already a menu choice in the alpha version Scribus 1.5.0. But the code behind the menu choice isn't in place yet. When it is I will do a diff run on two versions of the same file and see what is different. -- John Culleton "Create Book Covers with Scribus" http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html