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• • March 22, 2010 at 10:36 am #55222
    Jennie

    Member

    Using InDesign CS4, I created a letterhead file that uses three spot colors plus black. Output to pdf using our preset. When the printer sends it through the RIP she gets six plates, two of which are blank (blank = money down drain!).

    File contains 2 placed illustrator files (CMYK, but only used black and spots) and 1 placed photoshop bitmapped tif (black).

    I have deleted unused swatches. I am left with [none], [paper], [black], [registration], and three spot colors. The RIP software says that the extra plates are cyan and magenta.

    Before I send the pdf to the pressroom, I preview it in Acrobat using output preview … I'm only finding stuff on three spots plus black.

    I have exported to inx, opened that into CS4, still 2 extra plates.

    I've exported to IDML, opened into CS4, still 2 extra plates.

    I have placed the exported pdf into a new CS4 file and exported that to pdf, still 2 extra plates.

    Other than “printer's gremlins” can anyone think of any good, bad, or ugly reason for this??? Better yet, does anyone have a cure???

  • March 22, 2010 at 2:19 pm #55224
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Really hard to know without seeing the files in question.

    My guess is there are objects with Cyan and Magenta but the value set to 0% or a opacity of 0%.

    You should should do a search for Objects that are set to 0%, text set to 0% and frame strokes set to 0%. See if that's it?

  • March 22, 2010 at 3:06 pm #55225
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    File contains 2 placed illustrator files (CMYK, but only used black and spots) …

    Isn't that the trigger — CMYK? (You don't mention it, but you must be using Yellow somewhere as well.)

  • March 23, 2010 at 7:32 am #55239
    Bob Levine

    Participant

    Are you exporting? Are there crop marks?

    InDesign will export to PDF with all process colors even if they're not used. You should simply inform the printer not to output the blank plates.

  • March 23, 2010 at 8:51 am #55241
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Yes I particluarly don't like that, you should be able to choose the colour of Marks but you can't.

    I have Grayscale jobs that need to be plated and when sending to foreign countries a book that is just text and it has CMYK crop marks it sets off alarm bells.

    It would be easier to just let the user decide the colour of the crop marks, with a warning in place when deviating from Registration for Mark colours.

  • March 25, 2010 at 5:55 am #55286
    Jennie

    Member

    From Jongware

    Isn't that the trigger — CMYK? (You don't mention it, but you must be using Yellow somewhere as well.)

    One of the spots is a pantone yellow, one is a pantone blue, one a pantone red.

    No registration marks.

    I send an exported pdf to the shop. Other color jobs that I have sent out to the shop don't do this. I'm pretty sure that I don't have any transparancy at all in the file. It is a simple letterhead with text and 3 graphics. But I'll check out the file to be sure.

    Thanks for your help guys! Any additional ideas are welcome!!!!

  • March 25, 2010 at 9:52 am #55299
    John McKercher

    Member

    Just out of curiosity, are any of your pantone colours a pantone process colour instead of a spot? I've done this before, mixing up the suffix on a pantone colour so it's process instead of spot.

    John

  • March 25, 2010 at 10:37 am #55305
    Jennie

    Member

    Just rechecked. All spot colors except for black. Black is a standard 100k swatch. Thanks for asking…keep the questions coming and we may figure this bad boy yet!

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