Adobe’s ‘Distiller - Deathtrap’

I use to love ‘Distilling’. It was all I ever did for print-ready PDF-files. Oh, I tried exporting to PDF from InDesign. But I didn’t really start exporting everything as PDF until I got my hands on InDesign CS3. And after what I just found out I’m glad I don’t use Distiller’s build-in standard PDF/X1a:2000 any more. Because the standard PDF/X1a can screw up your artwork big time.

The PDF/X1a:2000 joboption will install automatically when you install Acrobat. You didn’t ask for it, but when you fire up Distiller it’s right there. You can’t even delete it because Acrobat uses something like an auto-repair and just places the joboption right back in the job-option folder. (Unless of course you delete the unwanted joboptions and change the folder’s permissions to read only.) Little did I know this persistent bugger also proved to be a color-deathtrap.

At first glance it looks a safe choice. I’ve used PDF/X1a:2000 to provide ads as PDF’s to newspapers and magazines around the world. I’ve send out entire brochures distilling to PDF/X1a. Just print to postscript and distill. Check the report. No errors? Send it out! What could be simpler? But there is a problem. The PDF/X1a:2000 joboption totally ignores the CMYK-profile your document – or even InDesign – has set for the document. Every PDF created via Distiller will receive the U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 output intent.

Well thats just fine and dandy if you happen to live in the United States and your artwork gets printed in a newspaper. But you did not ask for Distiller to delete your own CMYK output profile and replace it with U.S. Web Coated. And apart from that, there’s no warning at all in the log file. Imagine all the nice RGB-images you’ve placed in InDesign getting optimized for U.S. Webcoated…

What is a Distiller-fan to do? Well, for starters download the free CertifiedPDF.net joboptions (and InDesign export-settings) I described in this article called ‘Adobe InDesign’s Hidden Transparency Flatteners’. You’ll find joboptions for the most common settings, Newspaper, Magazine, SheetSPOT and SheetCMYK. These settings are PDF/X1a compatible but they do a much better job checking your Postscript and PDF. They won’t add the U.S. Web profile and they’ll do a much better job of checking your artwork. For instance: They will check image-resolution and give you a ‘heads up’ in the Distiller log. Distiller’s PDF/X1a will not.

I wish I could take credit for all these facts, but I really can’t. Being Dutch I’m able to read German as well and these facts about Distiller’s PDF/X1a:2000 were discovered by the guys from Clever Printing in Germany. I know a lot of readers are from Europe and Eastern Europe as well and as such I suspect you will also be able to read a little bit of German. If not, well you just need to buy Jan Peter’s (English) book called: Digital Color Management. Or you could just stop using the PDF/X1a:2000 joboption.