Printing and Saving PDF Files

After creating a fantastic PDF, you need to make sure that it is saved. Actually, you should be saving periodically so that you don't ever lose any information. Saving a PDF file is pretty routine and easy. Choose Save from the File menu to save over the original file, or choose Save As to save the file with a different name. Another choice is Save As Certified Document; this option was discussed earlier in this chapter.

You might wonder about printing your PDF. As with any other file, you can print your PDF documents.

Saving

When you create a PDF from most means, the first time you choose Save, you get the Save As dialog box. You don't have to save every file as a PDF. These are the file format choices:

• PDF Portable Document Format, or PDF, is easily read by any user who has Adobe Reader (free program found at www.adobe.com).

• EPS Encapsulated PostScript is used when working with design or page- layout programs.

• HTML Use this file type to save documents for the Web.

• Graphic formats JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG, and TIFF are all graphic-type formats that you can save a PDF as. When you save a PDF as any of these formats, you lose the text editing capability.

• PostScript Similar to EPS, PostScript is mostly used to change the printing options of a file.

• RTF Rich Text Format lets you use the file in a word-processing application.

• Word Use this format to save the file so that you can take it back into Microsoft Word.

• Text Use this format for plain or accessible text to save a file that retains the text but not the text's formatting.

• XML Use this format and XML Data Package Files for forms and to manage document workflows.

Saving a file as anything other than a PDF can offer many options under the Save As dialog box. If you choose to change the default settings under any of the other formats, click the Settings button to see your options (see Figure 10.28).

Figure 10.28. The General optional settings that can be edited under the EPS saving format.

Reverting

The Revert command under the File menu lets you take the document you are working on back to the last saved version. If you realize that you have made some errors and Undo just won't get you back, choose Revert to revert to the last saved version of the document.

Printing

Print any PDF file by choosing the Print command under the File menu. This launches the Print dialog box. In the Print dialog box, choose the options for Printer, Presets, and Copies & Pages. If you are connected to multiple printers, choose the printer you want to use from the pop-up menu. Choose from standard presets, or if you have saved your own presets, choose one of your own. On the Macintosh under Copies & Pages, you have more options to choose from:

• Copies and View In this area, choose All Pages, Current View, Current Page, or From a certain page To a certain page.

• Subset In the Subset area, choose from All Pages in Range, Even Pages, and Odd Pages.

• Print What Use this setting to choose Document, Document and Comments, or Form Fields Only.

• Page Scaling With Page Scaling, choose None, Fit to Paper, Shrink Large Pages, Tile Large Pages, or Tile All Pages.

• Auto-Rotate and Center This check box rotates the page to fit the paper and centers the document on the page.

The Printing Tips button launches the troubleshooting area on printing for Acrobat at Adobe's website.

Advanced Printing Options

In the Advanced Print Setup dialog box (click the Advanced button to get there), choose from the following: Output, Marks and Bleeds, Transparency Flattening, and PostScript Options. Under the Output options set are Color, Screening, Flip, Printer Profile, Apply Working Color Spaces, Apply Proof Settings, Simulate Overprinting, Use Maximum Available JPEG2000 Image Resolution, Emit Trap Annotations, and Ink Manager.

• In the Marks and Bleeds setup, choose Emit Printer Marks or All Marks. The Marks Style pop-up menu lets you pick the style of printer's marks. Check or uncheck Crop Marks, Trim Marks, Bleed Marks, Registration Marks, Color Bars, and Page Information.

• In the Transparency Flattening area, you set the Quality/Speed slider (higher for vector-based images and lower for raster-based images). Enter the rasterization resolution for line art and text and for gradient and meshes in pixels per inch. The other options you can check or uncheck are Convert All Text to Outlines, Convert All Strokes to Outlines, and Clip Complex Regions.

• The PostScript Options you can choose are Font and Resource Policy, Print Method, Download Asian Fonts, Emit Undercolor Removal/Black Generation, Emit Halftones, Emit Transfer Functions, Emit PS Form Objects, and Discolored Background Correction.

Printing Color Separations

Use Adobe Acrobat to print your color separations for a color PDF document. In the Print dialog box, click the Advanced button to access your color separations options. Under the Color pop-up menu in the Output options, choose Separations. You can even get as defined as choosing which plates to print. When printing with separations, you get one black, one cyan, one yellow, and one magenta file. Printing separations lets you see whether the different plates register (line up) with each other. If the plates are off in any way, you'll get gaps in the printing and might need to use trapping to fix any problems.

If you want to see what the separations will look like before choosing Print, choose Tools, Print Production, Output Preview. This launches the Output Preview dialog box (see Figure 10.29), where you can see each plate on its own by unchecking the other plates. The preview is directly on your PDF document.

Figure 10.29. The Output Preview dialog box lets you preview color separations and also access the Ink Manager feature.

The Output Preview dialog box can help identify ink coverage limits and also highlight areas in your file that are set to overprint.

Preflight

Preflight refers to the analyzing of a document for printing. Preflighting checks for any problems before sending a file to the print shop or service bureau.

Did you Know?

Choose Preflight from the Tools, Print Production submenu to activate the Preflight command. This launches the Preflight dialog box. Under this list, you can choose a preset profile or edit a preset profile as you want by choosing the file and clicking the Edit button. After you have chosen your profile, click the Analyze button to check the file.

You can choose from a bunch of preflight profiles. Click on one and click Edit to see the rules and conditions of that particular profile (see Figure 10.30). Each profile has certain rules and conditions.

Figure 10.30. The preflight rules and conditions are listed when you choose a particular profile.

After you have either chosen or created the Preflight profile, click the Analyze button to check the current file. It might take a few minutes to analyze the file, depending on the file size. After the file is analyzed, you'll see the results appear in the dialog box (see Figure 10.31). Any problems with the file will be listed, based on the rules of the profile that you chose earlier. Then with the results listed, you can decide whether and how to fix the files.

Figure 10.31. Acrobat's Preflight shows the problems that were identified during the preflight process.

When using Preflight on a document, you might not encounter any problems with the document. If that is the case, you might want to validate the file so that the printer knows that there are no problems with that particular file.

Did you Know?

To validate a file, click the Validate button at the bottom of the Preflight Results dialog box. This launches a warning box asking whether you want to continue. The warning also indicates that a Validation stamp will be appended to the document and that when you click OK, the document will be saved. Click OK. You get a message telling you the Validation was successful. Click Done.

Creating PDF/X-1aCompliant Files

When you have a preflight validated file, you can create a PDF/Xcompliant file. Use this when sending out a file for a professional print job. PDF/X is a form of the PDF format created by the International Organization for Standardization. The intent is to make the printing process streamlined by getting rid of unneeded information in a PDF document.