Settings menu, Job options/General

Please Note: whilst these screen dumps and settings refer to Windows Acrobat Distiller 5.0, they also apply to MacOS and Windows Distiller 4.05. Adobe Systems has changed the interface, but the underlying settings are the same.

• Compatibility: Acrobat 4.0

The resulting PDF file is based on the 1.3 specification.

• Optimize PDF: On

Select this setting to reduce the PDF file size by removing repeated background text, line art, and images and replacing them with pointers to the first occurrences of those objects.

• Generate Thumbnails: On

Select this option to create a thumbnail preview of each page. Then use the thumbnails to easily preview the resulting PDF file. (This is optional)

• Resolution: 2400 dpi

Enter the resolution (dpi) of the PDF file’s final output device in the Default Resolution text box. The value you enter here affects only vector (object-oriented) EPS files. For example, Distiller may use this value to determine the appropriate number of steps for a blend from an EPS or Postscript file will be preserved in the resulting PDF object.

• Binding: not applicable

• Default Page Size: Width 21cm Height 29.7 cm (A4)

If the PostScript file being distilled includes paper size information, this option is ignored. Distiller uses the values you enter in these text boxes when a PostScript file, such as an EPS file, does not include a paper size.

• Colour & Grayscale bitmap images: Average Downsampling 300 dpi or Bicubic Downsampling 300dpi

Subsampling vs. Bicubic Downsampling: The selection here can be either average downsampling or bicubic downsampling. These methods refer to the mechanism Acrobat Distiller employs to reduce the dpi to an optimum level, lower dpi. Bicubic downsampling uses a similar algorithm as Adobe Photoshop when changing image areas. The image retained in the final PDF file is of the same format. The quality may be different depending on the source image. Average Downsampling takes an average of the pixels and uses this as the replacement pixel. The quality of either of these options is greater than Subsampling.

The DPI chosen here will suit a great majority of advertising requirements where the screen ruling (lpi) is 150 or less. In the case where the targeted publication is printed with a higher screen ruling, the dpi can be set accordingly. 300 dpi should be considered the minimum dpi.

• Compression: ZIP, 8-bit.

ZIP is a lossless compression scheme. No information from the images in the source document is thrown away. 8-bit refers to the compression mechanism.

The committee has determined that quality is of paramount concern to advertisers. To ensure that no pixels or colours are changed in the supplied digital advertisement, ZIP compression is recommended a the baseline guideline.

• Monochrome Bitmap images: Subsampling 2400 dpi for up to 150 lpi (screen rule) publications. This is the minimum setting.

• Compression: CCITT Group 4

All Compression mechanisms in the Monochrome bitmap images are lossless.

• Compress Text & Line Art: On

Make sure the Compress Text And Line Art option is selected (it’s selected by default). The compression method Distiller uses for text and line art, such as vector EPS graphics, is lossless, so it doesn’t affect the quality of these elements in the PDF file.

Fonts

• Embed All Fonts: On

Select this option to prevent font substitution at print time. (Distiller embeds all PostScript fonts used in the document.) This option also enables Distiller to subset fonts.

• Subset All Embedded Fonts Below: On, at 100%

Select the Subset Fonts Below option and specify 100% so that Distiller will embed only the font characters used in the document. Distiller also renames the subsetted fonts in the PDF file to prevent an available font with the same name from being used for viewing or printing.

• Embedding: "Base 14 Fonts"

• When embedding fails: Cancel Job

In the Font Embedding tab, you can specify which fonts to embed in a PDF file to prevent font substitution at print time. Acrobat Distiller 4.05 can now embed ITC Zapf Dingbats and Base 14 fonts (Helvetica, Times, Courier, and Symbol font families), whereas Acrobat 3.0 Distiller did not allow you to embed these fonts. When you select the Subset All Embedded Fonts Below option, Distiller embeds only the font characters (glyphs) used in the document. It also ensures that your fonts and font metrics are used at print time by creating a custom font name so the advertisers’ version of Adobe Garamond will always be used for viewing and printing. Subsetting fonts also limits the ability of accidental character changes in advertisements.

• Leave colour unchanged: On

Leave Colour Unchanged for conversion so no colour conversion takes place.

• Preserve Overprint settings: On

If the PostScript or EPS file includes overprint settings it will be retained in the PDF file.

• Preserve Under Colour Removal and Black Generation: Off

UCR/GCR information is expected to be applied in any elements prior to creation. This is usually overridden at plate/film generation time based on the calibration of the output device.

• Preserve Transfer functions: Remove

Transfer functions are expected to be applied in any elements prior to creation. This is usually overridden at plate/film generation time based on the calibration of the output device.

• Preserve Halftone information: Off

If turned on, the halftone screen information will override any halftone screens you specify at print time.

• Allow Postscript file to Override Job Options: Off

This makes the settings in the Distiller override any Distiller-related settings in the Postscript stream. Applications such as PageMaker can insert special Postscript commands that may override these Distiller settings.

• ASCII format: Off

Leave the ASCII format option deselected so that Distiller saves the PDF file in binary format, creating a smaller file.

• Preserve OPI Comments: Off

OPI comments are only used when an outputting application needs to resolve low-res positionaly images back to an OPI-compliant server. As 3DAPv2 PDFs are to be self-contained, OPI comments should be removed (not preserved) in the final file.

• Preserve Level 2 copypage semantics, Save Portable Job Ticket File Inside PDF File, Process DSC, Resize Page and Center Artwork for EPS Files, Preserve EPS Info from DSC, Preserve Document Info from DSC: All on