[pdftex] incompatibility caused by Adobe EPS 6.0 patterns?

[Thierry Bouche]

Hi,

Le samedi 13 septembre 2003 à 17:00:46, Ben Crowell écrivit :


BC> The only actual problem that did show up was unexpected. The printer's
BC> Agfa imagesetter (am I getting the terminology right? -- produces plates (?)
BC> directly from PDF?) gave errors on certain pages of the book.

I reported here quite some time ago problems where illustrator patterns
would simply vanish with many PDF RIPs, although they would show OK on
screen. This problem is very specific to versions pre-7 of illustrator
(where patterns were internally coded as type 3 fonts, if I remember
well). Then, saving as AI-EPS 6 may be the wrongest choice! I have
encountered no difficulty with patterns in illustrator since version 8
(saved as version 8 !). The next problem being with transparency &
flattening...


BC> One possible solution that occurred to me was to print the pdftex output
BC> to a PostScript file, and then run Distiller on that.

That's _my_ way of preflighting. It _is_ useful: you can predict most
RIP problem by simply printing to the distiller virtual printer (with
correct settings) and looking to things that were converted to bitmap
[transparencies...], disappeared [fonts or patterns troubles...], colors
that changed...

 Thierry Bouche