Illustrator to Indesign- printing JPEG text

[Nuks]

Hey all,

I am printing a portfolio from Indesign, but having had some issues with the printshop last time I did this, I tried a different way today.

Last time I had a little bit of text (very little) overlayed in InDesign- project descriptions and page numbers. However, when I went to print, (even though I packaged the document) the shop couldn't install the new fonts and so I had to swap everything out instore for something similar.

This time, as I tend to do all my text in Illustrator and then import into InDesign, I made a pdf of my final InDesign file, saved each pdf page as a jpeg and put the jpegs back into another InDesign file to avoid all the hassle at the print shop. However (I should have foreseen this), the smaller text printed out blurry.

I'm wondering what the best way to rectify this is (as I just found out that InDesign has a create outlines feature)?

Should I:

A) import Illustrator files into InDesign (Do Illustrator fonts get linked when packaging... which would mean I would still have problems at the shop) and then create outlines of the page numbers?

B) Create outlines in all Illustrator links and then outline the page numbers as well.

C) Redo all text in InDesign and then delete it from the Illustrator files, then create outlines in InDesign.

Basically I don't think I can go there with fonts as they aren't a great shop, but my only option right now. Jpegs are coming out blurry so is outlining with Illustrator / InDesign my only option?

Any help is greatly appreciated, as this needs to go to print tomorrow!
Thanks

 

[decksnap]

Skip all that and export a PDF X1A with the fonts embedded.

 

[Nuks]

Oh sorry, one last thing that may or may not make a difference.

I'm using print booklet - saddle stitch in InDesign. I haven't found a way to do this from a pdf yet, so it could be that I HAVE to print from InDesign (?) Basically it splits all the pages up (1 and 20, 2 and 19 etc. so when bound on the middle page, everything fits together.

Thanks for the quick response though.

 

[btbrossard]

Any help is greatly appreciated, as this needs to go to print tomorrow!
Thanks

Certainly converting all the fonts to outlines would be far superior to saving pages as jpg files. That's going to look very poor.

As long as the fonts you're using allow you to convert to outlines, I would say do that. Make sure you only convert to outlines on a copy of your work, not the originals (in case changes are needed in the future).

Fonts used in Illustrator can be saved in the output files depending on what settings you use, however, if your putting those Illustrator files into InDesing on your system, it won't really matter. InDesign will have the same fonts available to it that Illustrator had.

As far as creating the imposition (printers spreads) in InDesign, quite a few shops charge EXTRA for customers that do that. Any shop worth it's fees their charging you already has imposition software that the files have to go into. Placing printer spreads into this software is HARDER for the shop to do than if the PDF was just created in reader's order.

The easiest and safest way to get a PDF out of InDesign is do do an Export to PDF. This is what we tell our customers to do who don't supply native files to us.

By Printing to a PDF, your counting on the PPD of the printer you've selected when printing to make good PDFs. Some PPDs simply will not work. (no font's embedded, subsetted fonts when they should be complete, RGB artwork instead of CMYK, Flattened low-res artwork instead of layered artwork, Rasterized type in atomic regions, ect...)

If the shop you're working with demands PDFs from you, I would ask them for the PPD for their workflow. For example, we use Kodak Prinergy and that PPD is available both on our FTP site for our clients and Kodak's Website.

Good luck-

 

[decksnap]

And that's the idea of the X1A. If it doesn't meet the standards for X1A, you should know because it will throw up an error.

 

[btbrossard]

And that's the idea of the X1A. If it doesn't meet the standards for X1A, you should know because it will throw up an error.

Of course. However, some people have a very hard time making the X1A compatible PDF.

We don't demand X1A compatible PDFs. That's what we have Preflight Technicians for. 99% of the time, we can make it work. If the client doesn't have to be bothered, it's all the better. It's more of a service that they can supply a file to us and WE will jump through the hoops to get it right, not them. That's what they pay us for.

If we have to invest a full shift into making a PDF work, that pays for itself in client satisfaction.

EDIT- and this is what sets American printers our from the cheaper Chines competition. Service and turn times. Our clients COULD order their product from oversees, but they choose to spend more with us because of the service we (and other American printers) can provide.

 

[Nuks]

Ok, the shop's not great and it definitely doesn't have the software to turn a pdf into a saddle stitch booklet. I had to show them how to do it in InDesign (and I don't know a thing about printing).

So I think I will just create outlines in Illustrator, put that into InDesign, do my page numbers in InDesign, and then create outlines for them as well.
Anyone see any problems with this?

I figure it's better to take some time now and figure this out than do it all only to find out there was a much easier way.

Thanks again you two.

 

[btbrossard]

So I think I will just create outlines in Illustrator, put that into InDesign, do my page numbers in InDesign, and then create outlines for them as well.

The outline idea is 100% better than the jpg thing.

Just keep original files on everything, as I've said before, so that you have something to go back to after converting to outlines for revisions or changes.

And you're printing to a PDF out of InDesign? What version of InDesign do you have?


It's too bad the shop your working with is so clueless. In todays print market, the competition for print work is fierce. It seems like everyone with a copy machine sells print services.

I know your probably under a deadline for this project, so switching vendors isn't an option, but in the future look for a better print provider.

As a print buyer, you are really in the driver's seat in todays market. A lot of print shops are hungry for work and will really compete on price and services.


I'll check back later if you need any more help. I work until 7 am cst, so I can help you until then.

 

[btbrossard]

Another idea-

You said you needed to print to a PDF to create printer's spreads. What about building the actual pages in InDesign in printer's spreads so that you're not dependent on the Print to PDF option out of InDesign?

I've had clients do this in the past, and if in the future, you need a reader's spread PDF, you can just export the pages in that order out of InDesign without re-working anything.

-Good luck

 

[Nuks]

Hey, I really appreciate the help.
I just moved to a new city, and this shop is on the first floor of the building I live in. I had heard they did a good job (but I realize now that this was from people just printing out documents!). I will definitely switch, but for the next few days I'll work with them.

The way I designed the portfolio is so that each spread is basically one image / drawing. If they were separate pages, I would just rearrange them, save as pdf and print to avoid the hassle. However, since they're essentially one image, it would probably mean way too much hassle to split up myself (they are Illustrator files..). Clipping etc would lead to a pretty big file.

So no PDF's for tomorrow, I will have to Print To Booklet from InDesign and just outline everything tonight in Illustrator.

Thanks so much, I really do appreciate it!
Cheers.

 

[btbrossard]

Since everything is built as spreads in Illustrator, you can place the spreads and then close the image crop box to just show the half of the spread you want on each page.

Then with the next page, you can adjust the image crop box to show the other half of the spread.

 

[Nuks]

Good point, I should have thought of that! That will probably save me some time.
Thanks mate

 

[DELELA]

Illustrator to Indesign- printing JPEG text

They probably wouldn't use either for the actual presentation, but they might create the content in one of them. When finished, a multipage PDF would be created which can be a presentable format. When presenting they would simply go through the pages just like if they were slides.

I agree, essentially any design program is much better than powerpoint since it's targeted towards consumers and not designers. Typically my solution for making a nice presentation with powerpoint is...I create each slide in photoshop, then I bring in all my images to powerpoint and assemble them. powerpoint is my presentation platform, but the actual content was make else where so it looks professional.

 

[Jim Campbell]

A minor aside, but JPEGs have no place in any print-based workflow. Use TIFFs for all your bitmap/raster graphic files.

I save all my native .ai files as PDF-compatible, BTW. This bloats the filesize, but means that the live document pages can be placed as images in a multi-page InDesign or Quark document and exported as a multi-page PDF from there.

Cheers!

Jim