[XeTeX] Default settings when making PDF?

William Adams will.adams at frycomm.com
Thu Jan 7 20:59:46 CET 2010


On Jan 7, 2010, at 4:11 AM, David J. Perry wrote:

> I will be creating a PDF to send to a printer and I want to be sure  
> that I get the highest quality possible.  When using tools other  
> than XeTeX, I would print to a postscript file and then process the  
> file with Acrobat Distiller, which allows one to set various options  
> to control file quality (and size).

If the printer is obnoxious, you could still do this by opening  
the .pdf in Adobe Acrobat, saving out as .ps, then distilling w/ their  
settings.

> For this project, I'm using XeTeX (with MiKTeX 2.7).  What defaults  
> does XeTeX use when the xdvipdf driver makes the PDF?  Is there any  
> way to control file quality?  If the driver automatically makes the  
> best PDF, that would be great.


It does. The biggest concerns are:

  - quality / nature of placed graphics --- these should be good- 
quality .pdf files for best control, .jpeg works as well --- .png  
should work, but I've never used it save for digital print projects  
which didn't require CMYK

  - colour model --- CMYK is readily supported, but if you need spot  
colours this will entail jumping through hoops as described in the  
past on this list.

  - .pdf bounding boxes --- (and possibly crop marks if required by  
your printer) --- these have to be worked in manually using .pdf  
specials as described on this list in the past

William


-- 
William Adams
senior graphic designer
Fry Communications
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.



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