Preparing PDF files for a service bureau
Open Prepress Interface (OPI) lets you use low-resolution images as placeholders for the high-resolution images that appear in your final work. When a service bureau receives your file, the OPI server substitutes the low-resolution images for the high-resolution images.
Document settings can be preserved to maintain how a PDF file looks. You can preserve document overprints and halftone screen information.
If you have spot colors in your file, you can either preserve the spot colors or convert them to process colors so that the file produces four plates for CMYK output.
Printers’ marks provide information to the service bureau about how the work should be printed. You can specify which printers’ marks to include on the page. The available printers’ marks are as follows:
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Crop marks — represent the size of the paper and appear at the corners of the page. You can add crop marks to use as guides in trimming the paper. If your output has multiple pages per sheet (for example, two rows by two columns), you can add the crop marks on the outside edge of the page so that all crop marks are removed after the cropping process, or you can choose to add crop marks around each row and column. A bleed determines how far an image can extend beyond the crop marks. A bleed requires that the paper you are printing on is larger than the size of paper you ultimately want, and the image area must extend beyond the edge of the final paper size.
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Registration marks — are required to line up the film, analog proofs, or print plates on a color press. Registration marks print on each sheet of a color separation.
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Densitometer scale — is a series of gray boxes ranging from light to dark. These boxes are required to test the density of halftone images. You can position the densitometer scale anywhere on the page. You can also customize the levels of gray that appear in each of the seven squares on the densitometer scale.
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File information — can be printed, including the color profile; name, date, and time the image was created; and page number.
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To maintain OPI links in a PDF file |  |
To preserve document overprint and halftone screen settings in a PDF file | |
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Preserve document overprints — retains the overprint settings of objects in a document
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To convert spot colors to process colors in a PDF file | |
To include printers’ marks in a PDF file | |
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If you want to include a bleed, enable the Bleed limit check box, and type a bleed amount in the corresponding box.
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The bleed option is only available for Acrobat 4.0, Acrobat 5.0, PDF/X-1a, and PDF/X-3. A third party plug-in is required to view printers’ marks in Adobe Acrobat.
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