OS X PDF & PlotBase

[owen]

Our project manager is having problems with printing our PDFs on their Ricoh large format printer via a PlotBase print system - which according to their IT Dept specifically requires PDF created by Acrobat Distiller. PDFs created by any other app/driver will not work on their system.

In ArchiCAD PDFs created via Print>Acrobat PDF are made using Distiller, however those created via Save PDF show the PDF Producer as Mac OS X 10.5... In Preview this can be seen under Inspector>General Info>PDF Producer.

Printing to Acrobat PDF is not an option as we do not get the individual sheets. Splitting a multi-page PDF up into single pages and renaming is obviously too time consuming.

Is anybody familiar with PlotBase or encountered any such issues with OS X PDF v Distiller PDF before? This sounds like an artificial limit rather than an issue with PlotBase to me.. I seem to remember a few people on here using/talking about PlotBase but i cannot find any reference via search

[Thomas Holm]

Archicad 11 PDFs created on the Mac use OSX's PDF creations system. As long as the content is vectorial only, it is very efficient.

But if your print system requires Adobe PDFs, just open the Archicad-published layout book PDF in Acrobat and use the Reduce File Size option. The file will not shrink, probably grow instead, but it will get the Adobe label required.

[owen]

Thomas wrote:
But if your print system requires Adobe PDFs, just open the Archicad-published layout book PDF in Acrobat and use the Reduce File Size option. The file will not shrink, probably grow instead, but it will get the Adobe label required.

I tried this (both Reduce File Size & Optimize PDF) but its still showing up as an OS X created PDF (see attached).

The problem is not ours but the project managers (who is also the client & contractor). We do not want to change our workflow, particularly if it is because their IT dept has put an artificial restriction on the type of PDFs their print system will work with. We have never had any problems exchanging PDFs created on OS X with anyone until now (which again leads me to think it is an artificial problem at their end).

[Dwight]

owen wrote:
their IT dept has put an artificial restriction on the type of PDFs their print system will work with.

Owen:

Once in a while, a fellow must put aside his polite talk and distant emails and other conflict-avoiding stuff to go over there and kick some IT butt. Scatter some pocket protectors, client or not.

And don't let them blame it on the Mac!

[Thomas Holm]

owen wrote:
I tried this (both Reduce File Size & Optimize PDF) but its still showing up as an OS X created PDF (see attached).

Sorry, i was wrong. It appears that Acrobat doesn't change this label. It is a comment string near the end of the file. A pdf file is a text file. You could test this by brute force by just opening the file in a text editor (I prefer the free Smultron ) and search for "producer" and change the string to something else, like:
Acrobat Distiller 6.0 (Windows)
Acrobat PDFWriter 4.0 for Windows NT
Adobe PDF Library 7.0

Those are all legit "producer" strings when the file is made with an Adobe program.

If you do this and your print shop accepts the file, you have evidence that they're the problem and not you. This should help in the task Dwight assigned!

Because it should work. If Acrobat accepts and processes the file without protest, it is a legit PDF and you should be able to send it anywhere for printing.

[owen]

Apparently one of our files has caused a 'printer failure' ...

I have sent a PDF 'Print' for them to try out - along with advise that we will be charging an additional fee if we have to post-process our PDFs for them.

I was going to try modifying the PDF Producer via a text editor as you suggest (just for fun to see if i could really break their printer). In doing so i did notice there are some obvious formatting differences in Acrobat v OS X produced PDFs. Some further reading on the Apple Discussions indicates that there appears to be some differences in how Distiller and OS X handle margins, etc .. I suspect this could be what is causing their problems.

I'd hoped saving as Postscript rather than PDF was an option (to a Distiller watched folder) but its not available as a format in Publisher (unless Printing).

Its been so long since i've used ArchiCAD on a PC - what does AC use to create PDFs when Saving v Printing? PDF support is not built into the OS is it?

[Thomas Holm]

owen wrote:
Its been so long since i've used ArchiCAD on a PC - what does AC use to create PDFs when Saving v Printing? PDF support is not built into the OS is it?

I don't know what GS use now on the PC. Seems they retired Aymuni with AC10. I guess they bought something to include in AC.

I'd prefer (a wish!) that they'd give us the option to use our licensed Adobe Acrobat PDF producer instead, on both platforms. Then those dickheads (the print shops) would have no excuse. If a malformed file can cause a printer failure, the Plotbase software is obviously at fault. It should catch such problems before it sends them to the printer.

But perhaps you can find a competitor to this printshop in your neighborhood?

[owen]

Thomas wrote:
I'd prefer (a wish!) that they'd give us the option to use our licensed Adobe Acrobat PDF producer instead, on both platforms.

Yes .. good idea.

Thomas wrote:
But perhaps you can find a competitor to this printshop in your neighborhood?

If only i could .. they are the client

[Thomas Holm]

owen wrote:
If only i could .. they are the client

I see.