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• • November 18, 2009 at 3:16 pm #53796
    rydesign

    Member

    I have about 25 .indd documents that i do every month and was looking for a way to automate my conversion of these to PDF. I make 2 sets of pdfs… one with the standard phone number and one with a web phone number. I have set up a sweet Automator Action but am a little sore with the quality it produces. If i could set up a similar action and get better quality i would be a happy man. Here is what the Automator Action does with help of https://www.automatedworkflows……esign.html

    1. finds all open InDesign Documents

    2. Exports those documents with PDF setting “shared” saves to folder “shared folder”

    3. finds all open InDesign Documents

    4. does a find for phone # 555-555-5555 replaces it with 444-444-4444

    5. Exports InDesign Document with PDF setting “web” saves to folder “web folder”

    6. finds all Indesign Documents

    7. Closes all InDesgn documents without Saving

    This worked amazing all 50 pdfs were made very quickly…. about 20 minutes or so. I had been doing this by individually printing each of the files as postscript and distilling them. Yay Hours of work Avoided right… wrong :(. The image quality isn't as great…. the files are larger… and it jumbles all the text around in my placed indesign documents. Surely someone out there has an answer.

    Is there a way that I could just batch convert all these files to postscript and then distill them? So I can achieve similar file size and quality? I thought i could use the automator action for printing InDesign Documents and then just print it to postscript… but it never gives me the option to save the files somewhere so nothing happens.

    Help

  • November 18, 2009 at 3:39 pm #53798
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    The issue seems to be with the quality of the PDF, perhaps you should use the setting Press Quality instead of Web/smallest size.

    Seems like a nifty script, wondering if you could save yourself some bother and just include both phone numbers, save you having to create two pieces.

    And do all the PDFs have to separate or combined? If combined you could use the Book Panel to documents and export to PDF. If all the documents are single pages the Acrobat option to export all pages as individual pages should be there under Document>Extract Pages.

    Hard to help further without knowing the structure of the document though.

  • November 18, 2009 at 4:23 pm #53799
    rydesign

    Member

    Yeah i am trying to play around with the export setting for now. The problem is I need the files to be small. Since they will be uploaded to the web. the phone numbers are used to track how the customer receives the piece… can't include both numbers.

    I am using my own PDF presets as well not the predefined one that ship with indesign.

  • November 18, 2009 at 4:39 pm #53800
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Hmmm ok, seems like you have it licked.

    The smaller you make the file size the more quality you lose. There has to a compromise:

    Small szie – low quality

    Medium size – medium quality

    Large size – high quality

    Or anywhere between those 3.

  • November 18, 2009 at 6:24 pm #53803
    rydesign

    Member

    The biggest problem I am having with things is the quality difference between using the Export PDF and Printing to postscript file and then distilling. I wish they were consistant with eachother but they just are not. Distilling the files gives me smaller files with better quality under the same export settings in distillers.

    Is there anyway to batch convert indesign Docs to .PS files?

  • November 18, 2009 at 7:52 pm #53805
    Adam Jury

    Member

    Zevrix's BatchOut can handle batch exporting/printing InDesign files into a variety of formats: regular printing, PDFs, postscript, EPS, JPG, SWF, XFL, INX. https://zevrix.com/batchoutput.php

    Also, are you using CS4? This sounds like a case where Conditional Text can save you that search-and-replace step.

  • November 18, 2009 at 9:01 pm #53807
    rydesign

    Member

    Thank you… I will have to check in to the Zevrix solution. I am using CS4 but am unsure of how do use it in an automated workflow… so far the find and replace works without me even really thinking about it.

  • November 24, 2009 at 12:25 am #53928
    rob_indd

    Member

    rydesign said:

    Is there anyway to batch convert indesign Docs to .PS files?

    ---

    You can see and try MadeToPrint

    https://www.axaio.com/doku.php/…..toprint_id

  • November 24, 2009 at 3:41 pm #53947
    James Fritz

    Member

    I would try the “High Quality Print” PDF preset. It is a good compromise between smallest file size and Press Quality.

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