Masood,

I apologise for the delay but Christmas is a nightmare time for me as I’m neck-deep in producing printed collateral for schools for the start of the following year. I wasn’t ignoring the post, I just didn’t see it.

I’ve created a script that makes it impossible (or at least difficult) for anyone to print or export a PDF unless the chosen preflight profile has zero errors. I’ve made a video of that script in action here: https://youtu.be/hffI_rHR9g8

To gauge whether the script is a feature worth incorporating into future versions of InDesign, I’ve made the script a “request only” so that I can gauge responses and forward this information onto Adobe for their programming team. To my surprise, there’s been very little interest in it. My cut and stack script and coloured QR code scripts that were previously “request only”… lots of requests, but barely any for this one. If you like the video and want a copy, get in touch with me via my website that’s linked in the youtube video. The script is free but is available on request only.

So far as providing free scripts go, I’m of this opinion: If it’s in the wider interest of the InDesign community as the script may patch an issue or introduce a feature that ought to be there; or if it will generate traffic for my website, I’ll release it for free in the public domain (If I know how to write it). If it’s a one-off request for a bespoke project that MAY interest someone else on rare occasions, then perhaps a private message to the individual that the custom script can be created for a fee is more appropriate than posting the message publicly on a forum.

I use a wacom tablet, but do not use traditional proofreading marks. Instead, my clients use the commenting within Adobe Acrobat to mark up the PDF. From there, I use a third party program from DTP tools that allows InDesign to take in many of the strikethrough, addition and alterations features directly, and shows highlights and speech bubble alts. https://dtptools.com/product.asp?id=anid if you’re interested.

Bernard, are you the proofreader? What happens to the proofs once they have been marked up in Acrobat – are they printed out and then handed over for editing, or does the operator open the PDF with the markups and make the alts with indesign open in another window? If the latter is the case, then the software from DTP tools will definitely be in your interest.

Just to declare interests, I am NOT affiliated with DTP tools nor is this a paid endorsement. I DO use it in my workplace but pay a full yearly subscription.

Haven’t seen your email, but can show you the script working. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sem6ODINvo

There is a solution that revolves around doing this using a script in Adobe acrobat itself. It works in Acrobat DC.

The script is available on this page: https://forums.adobe.com/message/3945387 (post no.8)

My $0.02:

I’ve been an Adobe InDesign user since its release. I wasn’t always a fan, but was finally converted by CS2. Compared to other programs such as Quark Xpress, Scribus or Pagemaker, I know what application I would rather use.

That said, I am frustrated and bemused at the lack of improvements or innovations that were introduced to InDesign in the revisions in the past few years that address what I would like to see as a prepress operator and graphic designer primarily in the print medium. There have been improvements to produce content for on-screen media (whether publish online, HTML5 or epub) but features other users have been requesting for years on end, such as an improved footnotes and endnotes feature, are still yet to be adopted.

I was present at PEPCON 2015 where the Adobe InDesign team had an open Q&A with the attendees, and can tell readers who weren’t at the session that the people that need to hear our concerns have certainly heard them. There will be another chance in Denver in November 2015 during the InDesign Conference.

Given that PEPCON 2015 was three months ago (at the time of writing this post) I don’t expect our wishes and requests to be implemented immediately in the next release. Knowing that our requests have been heard, taken seriously, and perhaps working towards implementation would certainly be a step in the right direction.

Eugene’s suggestion in his first post in this thread does already exist, and it is the bug report/wishform page: https://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html . As someone who has filed many reports and requests, it is easy to feel as if the reports lob straight into a trash-can… until they are dealt with and answered. I’d filed a bug report (among others) concerning the delete function not working correctly in the last release… and in this release it is fixed.

It is important for Adobe to be reminded why InDesign became the success that it was over Quark Xpress, and that was because it was a better product with innovations that had been ignored or disregarded by its competitor. I believe that to remain as the better product, it has to constantly innovate, improve and be better than not only its historical competitors, but new ones as well (e.g. Affinity Publisher).

I completely agree with David. That is a printer problem, not a problem of InDesign.

If your Canon/OCE vario interfaces with the Fiery RIP, you would control this from the VDP tab in the job properties on the Fiery… perhaps this question would be better directed to Fiery’s manufacturer, EFI – http://www.efi.com.

Just tested the PDF and the separations looked fine on my screen. The frame you are speaking of is likely to be the frame that contained the eps logo in InDesign. Has your printer offered an explanation as to how this may have happened, and if so, what was the explanation? Does the printer have a procedure in place for handling non-conformance issues like this?

Was this the only page that this happened on or was this throughout the document?

I have occasionally seen results like this but NOT on an offset print, but digital colour copies… where the black was 100K only and the graphic above had an unexpected effect on it that wasn’t visible. In instances like this, the Fiery RIP would make the 100K areas print so dense it was closer to registration colour than black; but anything that was where the graphic frame was would just be matt and dull. Ultimately I don’t think this is what is happening in this instance.