65. Preview Color Output See Also  67 Preflight a PDF 72 About Transparency Flattening Preview
If you need to preview a PDF document's output, Acrobat provides a convenient way to do so with its Output Preview dialog box. This dialog box enables you to proof a document's colors, preview separation, and color warnings using the open document window. You can choose from different simulation profiles and color spaces and see both process and spot color plates as well as the ink coverage per plate. | 1. | View Color With the PDF document open, click the Tools menu and select Print Production, Output Preview . This opens the Output Preview dialog box. Select All or one of the following options from the drop-down Show menu: DeviceCMYK, Not DeviceCMYK, RGB, Gray, CalGray, Calibrated, Device, DeviceCMYK and Spot, Spot Color, Images, Solid Color , or Smooth Shades . NOTE  | Although Acrobat's output preview capabilities are impressive, the onscreen separation preview colors that you see most likely won't match the final printed color separation output unless you have been using a color management system with accurately calibrated ICC profiles and have calibrated your monitor. | | | 2. | View Separation Plates When printing documents that use more than one color ink, a separate plate is used for each different color. These colors combine to form the final printed output. In the Output Preview dialog box, select Separations from the Preview menu. In the Separations section, select the box just to the left of the separation plate names . To deselect a separation plate, click the box again to hide the separation. To view all separation plates, select the Process Plates box and all separation plates are visible.  | | 3. | View Color Warnings Viewing a color warning enables you to check whether colors in your document are reproducible on a specified press or if rich black ink will be used instead. NOTE | | Depending on the type of paper and the quality of the ink, the color black can often appear with a noticeable brown or purple tint. To get the color black to appear truly black, printers often add other colors to it. Adding some cyan, magenta , and yellow ink to black ink creates a deep, dark, and convincing black. This is referred to as rich black and is a common practice in the printing industry. | In the Output Preview dialog box, select Color Warnings from the Preview menu. Select Show Overprinting in the Warnings section to see whether there are any areas of the document where there might be some color bleeding, transparency, or overprinting. You can change the warning color by selecting a different color from the swatch color picker. Select Rich Black to see whether any area or text will be printed in rich black. Rich black is black ink mixed with colored ink to give it a richer color and increase opacity, preventing background colors from showing through text or images. |  |
