Export to EPS Changing 100% Black to 91%

[Ken Orth]

Strange new issue for me. Latest document is all grayscale. My method in previous CMYK documents going to press is to export to EPS then run thru Acrobat Distiller to convert to PDF.
Apparently when I do this process for my new grayscale document, it reduces the black in the fonts from 100% K to 91% K. It appears to be this way in the EPS document prior to going thru distiller. (It doesn't do that for the fonts in my previous CMYK Documents).
Settings? Something I'm doing wrong? How do I keep the font black up at 100%?
Running CS2 on Mac OS/X 10.4.

[Bob Levine]

Why are you doing that? Just export directly to PDF.

If you absolutely positively need a distilled PDF then just print to
Adobe PDF after setting distiller properly.

Bob

[Ken Orth]

When I exported straight to PDF, I was losing fonts. The PDF looked fine, but the printer (CMYK web printing) would mess up. Their solution for me was to export to EPS then run thru distiller. This has solved the problem of missing/defaulted fonts. But now it has created this 91%K problem. My question... isn't there a way to stop the black in fonts from being reduced to 91% when exporting to EPS?
A side issue may be that there is a way to ensure that all the fonts are there when I export to PDF and I won't have to go thru the distiller process.

[Bob Levine]

Then try the print to PDF route. But if you want to go the two step
process then at least do it right. Print to postscript and distill that.
EPS is a subset of postscript and is missing page information for starters.

Bob

[Peter_Truskier@adobeforums.com]

But if you want to go the two step process then at least do it right.




I would say that there is nothing "wrong" about exporting an EPS for Distillation. How is the fact that EPS is a subset of PostScript a problem? InDesign-exported EPS files have a properly commented "%%BoundingBox" comment which describes the bleed size and a "%%CropBox" comment which describes the trim. Distiller can be set up to honor these comments.

I think that Ken has a Color Management problem, and that the distinction between EPS, PS, and Printing to Adobe PDF is a red herring.

[Bob Levine]

> I think that Ken has a Color Management problem, and that the distinction between EPS, PS, and Printing to Adobe PDF is a red herring.

Maybe, but with all things it's best to eliminate potential sources of
problems.

Bob

[Ken Orth]

Truthfully, the method of "Printing" rather than exporting is pretty darn cumbersome. I'm not sure what I'm eliminating by doing this. It seems that all I can say is that it works (as far as the black reduction anyway), but I am not sure that it will continue to preserve all of the fonts, which was my original issue.

[Bob Levine]

When printing to PDF make sure to select download PPD fonts and change
the subset below figure from 100% to 0%.

That should kill any possibility of a font problem.

Bob

[SuperMacGuy@adobeforums.com]

Ken, this topic has come up many times. Do a search, and also look in the Acrobat forum.
I also had the same problem with some documents.
The solution isn't for everyone, but just turn off color management in ID and then export. Of course if you rely on it to handle color images and keep things in balance or have on-screen calibration, maybe you won't want to.
But after I turned it off, my exported text was at 100% K, and all was OK then.

[rob_day@adobeforums.com]

Strange new issue for me. Latest document is all grayscale.




Ken, InDesign does not have a grayscale mode or space, and that is the source of your problem. Your black text is actually 0|0|0|100 CMYK not 100% on a grayscale. The CMYK profile you are using sees 0|0|0|100 as not the blackest black—that's reserved for rich black, so when you export the EPS to the gray color space, 0|0|0|100 CMYK is converted to something less than 100% grayscale black. Same thing would happen if you converted 0|0|0|100 CMYK to grayscale in Photoshop.

Turning off color management will work but you can also export as CMYK and simply output the black plate.

Rob

[AlFerrari]

When printing to PDF make sure to select download PPD fonts and change
the subset below figure from 100% to 0%.




Bob,

I agree with the second part of that statement, but question the meaning of the first part. Does the Adobe PDF printer have a PPD, and does it have any fonts?

Al

[rob_day@adobeforums.com]

Printing to PDF or distilling won't solve the color problem. If the chosen Output Color space is Composite Grayscale there will still be a color conversion. The reason exporting works is there isn't a grayscale option, only RGB or CMYK, so the CMYK black gets exported to CMYK and is unchanged.

[Bob Levine]

I always make sure it's checked when using a postscript print workflow.
And yes, there's some font info there but I think it's all courier.

Bob

[Peter_Truskier@adobeforums.com]

Does the Adobe PDF printer have a PPD, and does it have any fonts?




Yes and yes. The PPD is called "ADPDF6.ppd" or "ADPDF7.ppd". The Distiller 7 ppd contains the following about base fonts:

*% Base fonts
* DefaultFont: Courier
* Font Courier: Standard "(004.000)" Standard ROM
* Font Courier-Bold: Standard "(004.000)" Standard ROM
* Font Courier-BoldOblique: Standard "(004.000)" Standard ROM
* Font Courier-Oblique: Standard "(004.000)" Standard ROM
* Font Symbol: Special "(001.008)" Special ROM

[johndziner@adobeforums.com]

Hi Ken. Did you have any luck getting text in your PDFs to print solid black? I'm also another frustrated user trying to solve this issue. So far, I'm on hour #10! I tried everything in the threads of your question, but nothing worked, even w/color mgmt turned off. What did you do to resolve? Thanks, Greg J.

[Ken Orth]

I, too, bombed out on the suggestions above.
I have found that exporting to a PDF will keep the black at 100%. Then, to solve my problem of losing fonts, I am giving a shot to doing this and going into the "advanced" screen of the "export to PDF" dialogue box and changing the "subset fonts when percent used is less than" to 0%. (It defaults to 100% and I do not know a way to change that default... you have to change it every time you export).
This sounds counter-intuitive to me (at least the way the thing is worded), but I found in the InDesign Help to change it to zero if you wanted to ensure that all fonts were included. So, that is what I'm doing. There is not a good way for me to prove that it works, other than disproving it by the print company coming back at me and telling me a font has screwed up.
Also, my print company has told me that they have a way to convert all fonts on all pages to 100% if they know to look for it and then do it. I'd like however, to not have to rely on this.
I'm trying my way on my next issue (next week), We'll see.

[johndziner@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for the reply. I'm not having any font problems (yet), but still cannot resolve the black issue by simply exporting to PDF. I've turned off color management in ID color settings. Still nothing. What are the toggles you're using for Adobe preset, Standard, and Color under the Output pane? Are you still having to set font subsets to 0% even if fonts aren't an issue? Thanks again, Greg

[Ken Orth]

Check in ID preferences, appearance of black, for output, set to output all blacks accurately.

[Ken Orth]

BTW, how are you determinng the percent black of your text in the exported PDF? And you are "exporting", not "printing" to PDF?

[DavidT]

DavidT, "PDFs print solid black text at 92%K-HELP!" #3, 29 Sep 2006 1:54 am </cgi-bin/webx?14@@.3bc1d1d8/2>