High quality pdfs

[Martin Conradi]

We want to print high quality A5 (i.e. half-size letter) handouts but our
printer's big commercial machines run into all sorts of problems with PPT
output from Notes pages - with border widths, black lines appearing round
the slide image, etc.

PDFs would seem to be the answer but Acrobat (at least the way we are using
it) doesn't seem to work as the graphics break up. We are not concerned to
preserve animations, just to get true, accurate printing.


The printers can't run A5 paper, only A4 (full-size letter) which they then
trim to size.


We've heard that there may be other, better ways of making PDFs. Does anyone
have any experience of Acrobat for Windows or similar products?


Or any other ideas?

We use 2000 or XP on Pcs, as do the printers.

Thanks.

Martin Conradi
www.ShowcaseSolutions.net

 

[Echo S]

Martin, would it be possible to use File/Send to Word and then create
the PDF from there? I lay out our notes pages in Word and then print to
file, rename the *.PRN to *.PS and then distill that. I'll occasionally
have problems with a graphic, but not too many.

I do something similar with Quark, but we output the slides as images
and then import those into Quark in that case.

How are you creating your PDFs?

 

[Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP]

Hi Martin.

Hard to say whether there's a better way until you tell us the current way.

Mention which version of Acrobat you use too, assuming you use it and not
some other app.

We use 2000 or XP on Pcs, as do the printers.

PowerPoint or Windows? Could be either.

Tough crowd, ain't it? ;-)

--

Steve Rindsberg PPT MVP
PPTLive ( http://www.pptlive.com ) Featured Speaker
PPTools: http://www.pptools.com
PPT FAQ: http://www.pptfaq.com

 

[Barry]

Martin,

I've run into very similar problems to what you're describing - I can
tell you what we did (which worked), but I can't promise it's your
solution as well.

First off, when printing the Notes page, we used to often get lines
appearing around the slide image and/or notes section. To get around
that, it turned out we just had to do two things. First, in the Slide
master (View->Master->Slide Master), make sure there was no border
around the text object (or whatever is in the Master). Just right
click, Format Placeholder, select Colors and Lines, and under line set
it to No Line (in some of our docs it was on Automatic). For the notes
section, it's very similar except in the Notes Master.

As for Acrobat printing, I'm not sure what you mean by "the graphics
break up". If, however, you mean the graphics end up looking like
sh**, then it sounds about right for Acrobat, using the defaults.
Here's a few suggestions that may help:

1) Always use Distiller, not PDF Maker - it gives you much finer
control, and you just use it as a printer.
2) Open up Distiller, Acrobat Distiller (I have 5.0, works the same
for 4.0), then go to Settings->Job Options. Try the following
settings:
- Resolution 600 dpi (high quality color you may want more but for
laser this is more than enough)
- Compression Tab: For Color, Greyscale and Monochrome images, change
the compression to Zip, and make sure Downsampling/Subsampling is not
checked. This will give you less compression in your final PDF file,
but you will be using more or less lossless compression. With the
default settings, anything color is compressed with JPEG and looks
absolutely abysmal.

There are plenty of other things to play with, but the compression
setting was the big one for me. Of course, if by "break up" you mean
the graphics literally break into pieces, well, I'm afraid you're out
of my depth

Hope this helps,

Barry

 

[Martin Conradi]

Thanks Barry (and Echo and Steve) - we're testing your various suggestions
out now. We're using Acrobat 4 - does 6 give better underlying results or is
it just added bells & whistles?

Martin

Martin,

I've run into very similar problems to what you're describing - I can
tell you what we did (which worked), but I can't promise it's your
solution as well.

First off, when printing the Notes page, we used to often get lines
appearing around the slide image and/or notes section. To get around
that, it turned out we just had to do two things. First, in the Slide
master (View->Master->Slide Master), make sure there was no border
around the text object (or whatever is in the Master). Just right
click, Format Placeholder, select Colors and Lines, and under line set
it to No Line (in some of our docs it was on Automatic). For the notes
section, it's very similar except in the Notes Master.

As for Acrobat printing, I'm not sure what you mean by "the graphics
break up". If, however, you mean the graphics end up looking like
sh**, then it sounds about right for Acrobat, using the defaults.
Here's a few suggestions that may help:

1) Always use Distiller, not PDF Maker - it gives you much finer
control, and you just use it as a printer.
2) Open up Distiller, Acrobat Distiller (I have 5.0, works the same
for 4.0), then go to Settings->Job Options. Try the following
settings:
- Resolution 600 dpi (high quality color you may want more but for
laser this is more than enough)
- Compression Tab: For Color, Greyscale and Monochrome images, change
the compression to Zip, and make sure Downsampling/Subsampling is not
checked. This will give you less compression in your final PDF file,
but you will be using more or less lossless compression. With the
default settings, anything color is compressed with JPEG and looks
absolutely abysmal.

There are plenty of other things to play with, but the compression
setting was the big one for me. Of course, if by "break up" you mean
the graphics literally break into pieces, well, I'm afraid you're out
of my depth

Hope this helps,

Barry







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[Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP]

Thanks Barry (and Echo and Steve) - we're testing your various suggestions

out now. We're using Acrobat 4 - does 6 give better underlying results or is
it just added bells & whistles?

The latter, mostly.

Barry's advice is good, particularly about PDFWriter. When you doubleclick
the PPT icon, forget you have it.

That's one nice feature of Acrobat 6. It doesn't include PDFWriter. ;-)

 

[Martin Conradi]

Works a treat! Thanks.

Martin

Martin,

I've run into very similar problems to what you're describing - I can
tell you what we did (which worked), but I can't promise it's your
solution as well.

First off, when printing the Notes page, we used to often get lines
appearing around the slide image and/or notes section. To get around
that, it turned out we just had to do two things. First, in the Slide
master (View->Master->Slide Master), make sure there was no border
around the text object (or whatever is in the Master). Just right
click, Format Placeholder, select Colors and Lines, and under line set
it to No Line (in some of our docs it was on Automatic). For the notes
section, it's very similar except in the Notes Master.

As for Acrobat printing, I'm not sure what you mean by "the graphics
break up". If, however, you mean the graphics end up looking like
sh**, then it sounds about right for Acrobat, using the defaults.
Here's a few suggestions that may help:

1) Always use Distiller, not PDF Maker - it gives you much finer
control, and you just use it as a printer.
2) Open up Distiller, Acrobat Distiller (I have 5.0, works the same
for 4.0), then go to Settings->Job Options. Try the following
settings:
- Resolution 600 dpi (high quality color you may want more but for
laser this is more than enough)
- Compression Tab: For Color, Greyscale and Monochrome images, change
the compression to Zip, and make sure Downsampling/Subsampling is not
checked. This will give you less compression in your final PDF file,
but you will be using more or less lossless compression. With the
default settings, anything color is compressed with JPEG and looks
absolutely abysmal.

There are plenty of other things to play with, but the compression
setting was the big one for me. Of course, if by "break up" you mean
the graphics literally break into pieces, well, I'm afraid you're out
of my depth

Hope this helps,

Barry







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