universally editable application

[Mary_Littell@adobeforums.com]

Here's our problem. We have Indesign CS2. We create ads that have to be opened by various random agencies around the country and they have to be editable (change type, page size, move art around etc.) I used to do all of these ads in Quark 4 since it was the one program that I could count on everyone being able to open but it's getting more difficult to do this. Our designs use a lot of layered photoshop files with transparent backgrounds and there's no easy workaround for this other than flattening things down which makes them less editable.

What would you suggest?

thanks!
Mary

[Jay_Chevako@adobeforums.com]

I'm going to hate myself for saying this because I hate layouts done in
drawing programs, but use Illustrator. It is much more common in my
local agencies than either Qxp or ID.
Jay

[Mary_Littell@adobeforums.com]

I may hate you for saying it too, I think I'd rather quit my job than make ads in Illustrator.

Thanks for the info, tho!

[Jay_Chevako@adobeforums.com]

Anytime, Maybe you can force all of those agencies, to use ID.
Jay

[Richard_Sohanchyk@adobeforums.com]

I agree with Jay. Illustrator is the common denominator. It could be hit or miss with ID/QX and if one shop has Q4 and another 6 or one has CS2 and the other CS1.

[Joel_Cherney@adobeforums.com]

Although the Adobe party line is that we shouldn't think that we can trust EPS files to be portable and editable in this way, I know that sufficiently simple EPS files can be edited by a wide-ish variety of applications, including (but not limited, of course) to Illustrator.

I, too, hate doing layout in illustration apps, but sometimes it's the only thing to do. For example, when your print shop is a Quark shop, and what you're trying to get printed is in Chinese... it's EPS-with-text-converted-to-outlines, or nothin'. Booting into OS 9 doesn't count, unless your print shop also has Chinese Quark. Furthermore, even if you can't count on everyone to have Quark or ID, or even Illustrator, I think that it can be assumed that everyone has Illy or Freehand or CorelDRAW, or, or, um, LyX, or something that will allow manipulation of EPS files.

[Jay_Chevako@adobeforums.com]

Joel your case screams for pdf, at worst you can use the transparency
trick to convert all fonts to outline.
At even worse than worst case you can open up said pdf in acrobat and
export to eps. Your printer shouldn't have to edit your file at all.
Jay

[AlFerrari]

Your printer shouldn't have to edit your file at all.




It would be prudent to read the original post before posting.

[Jay_Chevako@adobeforums.com]

I was talking to Joel, my post started with "Joel," It would be prudent
to read and quote the posts in context. If you had read the original
post you would realize that Mary isn't sending files to printers, she is
sending files to agencies for more changes.
Jay

[Kathryn_Jenkins@adobeforums.com]

…for example, when your print shop is a Quark shop, and what you're trying to get printed is in Chinese... it's EPS-with-text-converted-to-outlines, or nothin'.

I've had to do that a few times, and it's really painful. Since we've started doing that type of job in InDesign and sending PDFs to the printer, the process still has some tricky aspects but overall is much easier.

[AlFerrari]

I was talking to Joel, my post started with "Joel," It would be prudent
to read and quote the posts in context.




Point well taken. Thank you. But,:

If you had read the original post you would realize that Mary isn't sending
files to printers, she is sending files to agencies for more changes.




That was precisely what I was trying to tell you when I erroneously thought you were addressing her. No need to go in circles.

Thanks again,

Al

[Joel_Cherney@adobeforums.com]

The OP's question was about portability and editability; it seems to me that my post addresses both editability (EPS files can be edited by a wide variety of apps, with some pretty striking limitations) and portability (even printers stuck in the stone age, like state print bureaus that are literally Quark-only OS 9 shops, can handle EPS files). Furthermore, this thread was already getting derailed when people started talking about the unpleasantness of doing layout in a drawing app. It looks like my attempt to re-rail the thread has failed miserably, though.

So, Mary, do you have good reasons to avoid EPS files? There are many, one of which is probably the fact that your designs use a lot of layers and transparency, and these are features that won't be very portable between various applications that can edit EPS files. However, that's the best suggestion I can come up with at this point. You get a fair bit of portability (not nearly as much as you would with PDF format), and some limited degree of editability (once again, depending on the app used to generate the EPS, and the app used to edit it later).

[Mary_Littell@adobeforums.com]

Actually, my answer to my problem was so dumb it's embarrassing. I forgot that Quark 4 can handle layered tiffs. It's been so long since I've used Quark on a daily basis that I forgot that. So I create the file in Indesign. Layer all the elements so nothing is "touching" and then i copy and paste between indesign and photoshop until I have reacreated the ad (sans type) in Photoshop. Then I put the layered tif in Quark 4 and add the type. This way they have all the elements to move things around which is all I care about. The only requirement is that they have photoshop which is truly universal. After that they can save it as an flattend eps and drop in PC microsoft word files for all it matters to me.

But thanks for all the thoughts and discussion, it's an interesting problem that doesn't have an elegant solution. Indesign is so much better but I miss the days when one could assume that anyone we were dealing with had Quark 4. Pagemaker was nearly unheard of (at least for me in NYC), people were divided over illustrator and freehand but I never used either for layout. And everyone had Photoshop. The problem back then was more of a "do they have a jaz drive? or do I have to give them 7 zips?"

Good times.

[Jeffrey_Smith@adobeforums.com]

I forgot that Quark 4 can handle layered tiffs




huh?

[Brutus_Maximus@adobeforums.com]

>at worst you can use the transparency trick to convert all fonts to outline.

The newest version of Enfocus PitStop <http://www.enfocus.com/product.php?id=855> (v.7.0) now allows you to convert fonts to outlines directly within Acrobat without using the transparency trick. We've updated one machine already, and we'll be updating the rest of our PitStop licenses soon to take advantage of the many new features. Highly recommended.

[Dov Isaacs]

Be very careful. The latest version of Pitstop, 7.0.1, has some very nasty bugs, including forcing all of Acrobat to load at startup (including every plug-in), potentially adding a minute or more to Acrobat startup time!

- Dov

[Brutus_Maximus@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for that report, Dov. I'll look into the issue.

[Brutus_Maximus@adobeforums.com]

Dov:

I'm attempting to research this issue, but so far I'm not finding anything on PlanetPDF.com or PDFZone.com. A Google search only finds posts you have made here on the U2U forums. You are apparently the first person to have reported this bug.

Do you know if this bug exists in both the Mac and Windows versions of PitStop 7.0.1? Have you reported it to Enfocus, and if so, are they working on a patch?

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

[Dov Isaacs]

Actually, it has been discussed on Enfocus' user email list.

Yes, I have reported it to Enfocus' engineering team; no resolution in sight yet.

Unfortunately, PlanetPDF is hardly a place where you will find much anymore about anything other than their own Acrobat clone software.

- Dov

[Brutus_Maximus@adobeforums.com]

I saw that the Enfocus forums were in listserv format. I get so much e-mail already that I'm loath to sign up for another listserv forum.

Please keep us advised on the status of this issue.

P.S.: I have to agree about PlanetPDF. At least PDFZone.com is still a valuable resource.