[XeTeX] Printers & PDFs created by XeTeX

[William Adams]

On Jul 23, 2007, at 6:33 AM, Michael Elphick wrote:

> I am in the process of editing & typesetting with XeTeX a short
> booklet, and am also considering (in the future) a larger book. Both
> will be printed by a small local press shop, and I am planning to
> deliver the copy as PDF files.
>
> My query is whether the PDFs created by XeTeX (using TeXShop on an
> iMac running Mac OS 10.4.10) are likely to be acceptable for this
> purpose?
>
> I realise that the simple solution is just to try it, but any advice
> would be welcome ...  Adobe Reader shows the 'PDF Producer' as 'Mac
> OS X 10.4.10 Quartz PDFContext', and 'PDF Version' as '1.3 (Acrobat
> 4.x)'

The issue here is how well their RIP supports the features which  
you're using. Issues where things intersect and don't work well include:

  - transparency
  - CID-encoded fonts (usually these occur when you use fonts w/  
large character sets / strange encodings)
  - RGB -> CMYK conversion
  - clipping of characters at text boundaries

The printer should offer you some sort of contract proof / digital  
bluelines for you to sign off on. This proof should be RIPd through  
the same process used to make the plates which they'll print from,  
and it's their responsibility to ensure things match these. Make sure  
that they provide them, and check them carefully and you should be fine.

William

-- 
William Adams
senior graphic designer
Fry Communications