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1) If you are providing a file for a service bureau, follow their printer
requirements, period.
2) If you want to have well-formed PDFs or expect assistance troubleshooting
Acrobat woes, use the prescribed Adobe printer drivers and PPDs. Period.
3) If you want both of the above, do it twice: create one for your service
bureau and one for distribution/troubleshooting.
As an aside, I provided PS print files for my service bureau, using their
requirements for printer driver and settings. The service bureau didn't need
or want PDF. However, I distilled the PDF so I could double check the PS
print file I was sending. This worked out okay. However, if I had trouble
with the PDF, or wanted to distribute the PDF as an online doc, I would only
use the Adobe printer drivers and PPD. Note, I would never say that you
cannot use a PS printer driver than the Adobe one and, indeed, know several
circumstances where the Adobe ones fall down. However, in a general
discussion about creating PDFs in general I find and feel it most accurate
and best to say: use Adobe's stuff.
Best regards,
Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Win Day [SMTP:winday -at- home -dot- com]
>
>
> I've had problems using that printer driver when taking PDF files to a
> print house. Text on the drawings came out in random fonts, some readable
>
> and some not. And yes, I embedded the font (the drawings only used Arial,
>
> BTW, which shouldn't have been a problem in the first place!), and did all
>
> the other tricks the print house recommended.
>
> Only when I used the PS driver for the specific Xerox printer on which
> they
> would be printed did the print output look the way it should.
>
<snip>
> Which defeats the purpose of PDF file, don't you think? If the only way
> to
> guarantee that the output will appear the way I intend it to appear is to
> use the printer driver, when creating the PS file for Distiller, that
> corresponds to the printer being used to print the file, how is that a
> portable format? I won't necessarily know what printer the users will
> have, nor will I create multiple versions of the PDF file!
