Wednesday, 08th June, 2005

A 45% full Air New Zealand from Christchurch to Sydney, landing on 34L. Quickly through Customs and Immigration, and home. Being a farmer’s son, I know the impact of footrot (and other nasty diseases), so I’d cleaned the sheep poo from my shoes. Customs were happy and no xray or hand inspection necessary. I was expecting the full drug-sniffing dog treatment.

On Sydney soil for only 18 hours, and Avril and I are off. To Mexico via LAX.

Monday, 06th June, 2005

Out of the hotel at 8.30pm, Stamatia and I head towards Mount Hutt. A little secret in my life is that I’ve only been to “the snow” once – when I was less than 2 years old – and have never returned. Today is the day for me to be re-introduced.

Mount Hutt is the closest skiing/snowboarding mountain to Christchurch – about 2 hours drive from centre Christchurch to the car park at the peak: including time for the application of chains and to stop and take in the scenery of the Cantebury plan juxtaposed with the snow-capped mountains.

At the base of the mountain, I hire chains for the hire car – including installation this is NZ$20. Not a bad deal at all, since it takes two people crawling around the dirty wheel arches; mud, grease and tire black: installing chains to the tyres.

Picking up two Christchurch student snowboarders for company, Jack (from Shanghai) and Steelian (from Belgium) we drive up the winding, muddy and then snow capped roads with a sheer rise on one side, and fall to the other. Our lives are in my hands. Okeydoakey, lets go.

The disconcerting experience of having the wheel hard over in the exact direction of the sheer drop to certain page 1 headlines in Sydney, to point the car in a forwards direction is rather strange. Being my first experience with snow and chain driving is all the adrenaline rush I need. For today at least.

Snow. It starts of cold, and then it gets wet. Then its really cold. Now, I’ve cleaned refridgerator freezers in my time: from the big box ones to baby ones. Snow is this, just spread all around. As a committed winter person, I am in love. OK, so I’ve now experienced snow. Cool. Its bloody cold; time for coffee.

After watching the skiiers and snowboarders clash for the powdery runs, we decide the leave for windier climes.

One the trip down Mount Hutt there are two pieces of critical advice that pounded in my head. One over 20 years ago from my dad about “turning out of the curve of a slide” and more recently from Shanghai Jack (the snowboarder hitchhiker): don’t break and use a low gear. Both of these pieces of advice were instrumental in a safe trip down. Once sideways slide (saved) and many times ultimate control helped.

Chains off, and two hour drive back via Lyttelton to Sumner for a late lunch at the Rock Cafe. This is on the esplanade near what Sumner calls a beach. Two surfers brave the temperature, wind and rain.

We follow more sheer cliff-bound roads to Godley head. Scoped out yesterday, and after the rain and into the wind – Stamatia and I explore the site of a WWII battery that has clear views over Lyttleton harbour and Christchurch. All that is left now are sheep of mixed heritage (merinos, suffolks and a lancashire cross I think) protecting the harbour from terrorists.

Drive home (hotel) and rest.

Monday, 06th June, 2005

I have returned to Christchurch (refer Wellington and Christchurch (21st April and 22nd April)), New Zealand, for 4 days. Away from Sydney at Sunday at 6am, for a 40% full Qantas flight at 8:55am. The flight was so quick, I didn’t have time to listen to 2 hours of the 17 hours I can fit onto my new iPod Shuffle. Yes, I caved in at Duty Free and lumped down AU9 for 1Gb of backup device. This is about AU more than a Sandisk 1Gb SD card – so its not too bad for Apple-badged equipment. On the flight, only 5 seats out of 30 business class seats are taken.

Flying over the snow-capped peaks causes all the passengers to peek out at a unique piece of geography.

Through Christchurch Immmigration and Customs, I look sheepishly for the drug-sniffing dogs. Looking like a sheep when attempting to avoid professional coked-up canines is not a good move. Last time I came into NZ via Christchurch, I was assaulted in a “special way” in the crotch by a drug sniffing dog. This caused 30 minutes of extreme baggaging searching and ultimate frustration for the eager customs officer. This time, I exit cleanly.

Christchurch is conveniently situated around the local rugby fields, so its easy to find your way around. This trip, I’ve taken the plunge in a hirecar.

I think of Alan, the taxi driver I had in my last trip to Christchurch. I hope he has today off. Many of the locations of visit today and tomorrow are a result of my questions. Sumner, Mount Hutt.

Making my way out to the southern part of the Pacific, I take some quick photos and make my way to Taylor’s Mistake via Sumner. Spotting the Godley Point WWII battery, I make a note to visit tomorrow. Its back to Christchurch via the Lyttelton tunnel. Now that’s a tunnel!

I’ve noticed more in the south island that rubgy plays a close first as the official religion of state – just like AFL is the religion of Melbourne. One can just imagine what would happen if Rugby was outlawed in this country – it would fall apart.

Shag Rock, Sumner Beach, Christchurch NZ

Sumner Beach, Christchurch looking at Pacific Ocean in the approximate direction of Mexico.

From Taylors Mistake to Godley Head

Nick on the Cantebury Plain. Snow capped mountains in the distance

From snowy Mount Hutt to the green Cantebury Plain.

Snow chains. Sorry Hertz

My first experience in the snow, Mount Hutt, New Zealand. Its cold, wet then cold; just like a big freezer. Photo by Stamatia.

New Zealand country side. Wow.

Lyttelton Harbour, New Zealand

WWII gun emplacement at Godley Head, near Christchurch, New Zealand. Photo by Stamatia

WWII gun emplacement, Godley Head, New Zealand

Atmospheric photo, Godley Head, New Zealand

Sheep now guard Christchurch on Godley Head, not guns.

Scenic drive with New Brighton in the background, Christchurch, NZ

Church in Christchurch. One of many. Rugby fields also count.

Looking over Sumner, Christchurch, NZ

Telegraph poles over Taylors Mistake, Christchurch, NZ

NZ country side. Yes, it was cold at this hour of the morning

Mount Hutt, New Zealand

Mount Hutt, New Zealand

Cave Rock, Sumner

Lone, cold seagull at Sumner

WWII gun emplacement, Godley Head, New Zealand

Welcome to Adobe InDesign CS: Prepress Features

InDesign, since version 1.5, has been on an steep development path. InDesign 2.0 added the revolutionary features related to Transparency. The impact of simply placing a Photoshop file with transparency provides the catalyst to dramatically change Print design to pre-press workflows.

InDesign CS (version 3.0, InDesign CS: Prepress Overview) added Separation Preview and Transparency preview: both elements critical to smoothing the Prepress workflow related to InDesign.

What more features can InDesign CS2 (version 4.0) add?

Custom Points-per-inch.

(Edit>Preferences, Units and Increments) This is the measurement of pica point. A seemingly trivial difference between 72dpi and 72.27dpi has split the graphic arts community since the invention of Postscript, and the use of desktop computers for typesetting. Photoshop for many versions has a preference to change the Points per Inch style. (for a complete rundown, visit: Font measurements and What is Font Size?)

Appearance of Black

(Edit>Preferences, Appearance of Black) When is Black the new Black? 100K, or Black, commonly used in type is generally set to overprint rather than knockout the elements below. This has been the default, but customisable setting in InDesign since version 1.0. (see Overprinting of [Black] in the Preference above). Please note: New Zealand readers, All Blacks has nothing to do with Rugby; a gentleman’s game played by thugs.

Note: this setting is also available in Illustrator CS2.

The On Screen options:

Display All Blacks Accurately: this will produce a visual difference between 100K Black and Rich Blacks; where Blacks are 100K + other colours.

Display All Blacks as Rich Black: this will visually darken all the Blacks in the document to the same intensity. This will therefore make the document appear different to how it will print.

The underlying breakdowns of the 100K [Black] swatch, and other rich blacks will remain unaltered in the document. This settings is just changing the visual appearance.

Printing/Exporting options (on non-Postscript output devices):

Output All Blacks Accurately: this will ensure that the underlying settings of swatches, Overprint settings are honored. This setting will result in the printed output having a difference between pure black and rich black.

Output All Blacks as Rich Black: this setting will alter the colours as output on RGB and Greyscale devices to match the 100K [Black] swatch. Or another way to think of this, 100K CMYK black is output as 000 in RGB.

Changes to Drop Shadow Generation

Drop Shadows, added in InDesign 2.0, whilst adding an element of depth and third dimension to designs – their composition has been simple and two dimensional.

To match the styles of shadows that can be created in Photoshop since version 5.0, Shadows in InDesign CS2 can have Spread and Noise added.

Spread increases the size of the shadow into the blurred area and reduces the radius of the blur. The larger the value for spread, the less diffused the shadow edge will appear and print.

Noise introduces some randomness to the pixels in the shadow, and provides a grainier (sic) result in output.

The addition of spread, as explained by Michael Stoddart, permits “real” outer glows to be created in InDesign CS2. (note: to create an outer glow: use [Paper], change the x and y offsets to 0 (zero), and the Blend mode to Normal.

Saving Back as InDesign CS

The InDesign Interchange (.inx) format when using File>Export, permits saving back in a format that can be read by InDesign CS (version 3.0).

To read this interchange format, users of InDesign CS will need to update to 3.0.1 April 2005 (CS2 Compatibility Update).

As the InDesign CS2 Readme and Help states: “Be aware that content created using functionality that is specific to InDesign CS2 might be modified or omitted when you open the file in InDesign CS. For example, footnotes and object styles (new features in InDesign CS2) drop out. However, object style attributes applied to page objects are preserved when possible.”

Therefore, from a Pre-press file handover perspective, PDF is still the recommended format. The PDF will hold all elements in the correct position as per the InDesign CS2 document.

The interchange format is to permit editing by someone who has not yet upgraded from InDesign CS to InDesign CS2 edit documents.

Placing layered Photoshop and PDF into InDesign CS2

Layers, a mechanism for separating objects in Photoshop have been a fundamental part of its makeup for over 10 years. Added in Acrobat 6.0/PDF 1.5, layer support is actually a mechanism for grouping objects. Calling them layers makes it a simple leap of understanding.

In InDesign CS, along with support for Acrobat 6.0/PDF 1.5 layer output matching the layers in the InDesign document.

InDesign CS2 has the ability to dynamically turn on/off layers from Photoshop and PDF files on placing:

In this simple Photoshop file example, there are two layers added to the top of the original image from the following Photoshop file:

There is a one-to-one mapping of layers (and Layer Sets) from the Photoshop file to the placed file in InDesign CS2. In this example, the layer named “correct colour” is a Levels Adjustment layer. The “correct sign” layer is a layer-masked colour correction of the sign.

At placement time, any of these layers can be toggled on/off.

In a Prepress environment, there could be multiple Adjustment layers correcting an image that can be turned on/off at a later stage. Rather than bouncing back-and-forth between Photoshop and InDesign to fix/correct colour – the multiple versions and corrections can be created once in multiple layers. When working in InDesign CS2, the layers can be turned on/off dynamically:

Multiple Page PDF Place

Related to layered file placement, InDesign CS2 also has the ability to place multiple page PDFs.

In the above dialog, the selected PDF has two pages. Only the previewed page on the left can be placed, or all/page range can be placed into the InDesign CS2 document.

After selecting “All” Pages, the “placement gun” is loaded with the first page. After placing this page, the gun remains loaded with the second page … and so forth.

Taking a multple page PDF and placing it back into InDesign for placement/work is easier with InDesign CS2.

CID font encoding

As discussed in InDesign Prepress: Export or Distill PDFs?, there has been a undercurrent of “exported PDFs are bad” form InDesign since version 1.0. The base reason of this has been the method of encoding fonts in the PDF files generated.

CID (Identity-H) encoding is a long supported mechanism of encoding Roman and non-Roman fonts in Postscript, and subsequently PDF. Adobe PostScript Level 2 RIPs and later fully support CID font encoding. Older and some non-Adobe RIPs have difficulty with CID font encoding.

In the above example, the OpenType Pro font Bickham Script Pro with OpenType contextual alternates turned on. The Preflight profile to the right is from Acrobat Professional 7.0 that errors on CID font encoding. This PDF does not have CID fonts. Another file created with some of the included Chinese and Japanese fonts did, expectantly, produce a PDF where the fonts are CID encoded.

This change will promote the use of Direct PDF export from InDesign CS2, especially in workflows where there is a “blind handover”, and the sender does not know the levels of RIPs used at the output end.

Shared PDF styles with Acrobat Distiller 7.0

Acrobat Distiller takes Postscript output from any application and converts this to PDF. It is the oldest and most ingenious part of the Acrobat family.

A constant request from the beginning of InDesign has been to “synchronise” the settings files between the Distiller and InDesign. Whilst each application has a different approach to making PDFs, the settings required to get to the PDF (DPI of images, font embedding requests, etc) can be standardised.

With InDesign CS2, you can open a .joboptions file from within the application; and this setting is “added” to the PDF export settings available. Also, this setting is loaded into other applications of the Creative Suite 2; including the Distiller.

Distiller 7.0 also adds the ability to force conversion of non-CMYK images into a nominated CMYK colour space. This is a major advance in the Distiller (and a long requested feature!). InDesign since version 1.0 has converted RGB elements into the output colours space (usually CMYK) — a handy catch-all for problems with placed elements.

Why use the Distiller with InDesign CS2? There are some additional controls that are highly useful in Distiller 7.0:

Under the Image settings, there is a button “Policy”. This permits a greater degree of control over the policy when the bitmaps do not meet the target resolution. It is similar to the Font embedding policies when fonts cannot be embedded into the resulting PDF.

Booklet Imposition

ALAP InBooklet SE, originally included in the PageMaker Plugin Pack for InDesign CS, is included with InDesign CS2.

Permitting 2-up Saddle Stitch, 2-up Perfect Bound, 2-up; 3-up; 4-up Consecutive.

Summary

Distiller 7.0 and InDesign CS2 add the finishing touches to trouble-free PDF, for print, workflows.

Combined into the Creative Suite 2, the collective features are heading toward Prepress perfection.

Welcome to Adobe InDesign CS: Prepress Features

InDesign, since version 1.5, has been on an steep development path. InDesign 2.0 added the revolutionary features related to Transparency. The impact of simply placing a Photoshop file with transparency provides the catalyst to dramatically change Print design to pre-press workflows.

InDesign CS (version 3.0, InDesign CS: Prepress Overview) added Separation Preview and Transparency preview: both elements critical to smoothing the Prepress workflow related to InDesign.

What more features can InDesign CS2 (version 4.0) add?

Custom Points-per-inch.

(Edit>Preferences, Units and Increments) This is the measurement of pica point. A seemingly trivial difference between 72dpi and 72.27dpi has split the graphic arts community since the invention of Postscript, and the use of desktop computers for typesetting. Photoshop for many versions has a preference to change the Points per Inch style. (for a complete rundown, visit: Font measurements and What is Font Size?)

Appearance of Black

(Edit>Preferences, Appearance of Black) When is Black the new Black? 100K, or Black, commonly used in type is generally set to overprint rather than knockout the elements below. This has been the default, but customisable setting in InDesign since version 1.0. (see Overprinting of [Black] in the Preference above). Please note: New Zealand readers, All Blacks has nothing to do with Rugby; a gentleman’s game played by thugs.

Note: this setting is also available in Illustrator CS2.

The On Screen options:

Display All Blacks Accurately: this will produce a visual difference between 100K Black and Rich Blacks; where Blacks are 100K + other colours.

Display All Blacks as Rich Black: this will visually darken all the Blacks in the document to the same intensity. This will therefore make the document appear different to how it will print.

The underlying breakdowns of the 100K [Black] swatch, and other rich blacks will remain unaltered in the document. This settings is just changing the visual appearance.

Printing/Exporting options (on non-Postscript output devices):

Output All Blacks Accurately: this will ensure that the underlying settings of swatches, Overprint settings are honored. This setting will result in the printed output having a difference between pure black and rich black.

Output All Blacks as Rich Black: this setting will alter the colours as output on RGB and Greyscale devices to match the 100K [Black] swatch. Or another way to think of this, 100K CMYK black is output as 000 in RGB.

Changes to Drop Shadow Generation

Drop Shadows, added in InDesign 2.0, whilst adding an element of depth and third dimension to designs – their composition has been simple and two dimensional.

To match the styles of shadows that can be created in Photoshop since version 5.0, Shadows in InDesign CS2 can have Spread and Noise added.

Spread increases the size of the shadow into the blurred area and reduces the radius of the blur. The larger the value for spread, the less diffused the shadow edge will appear and print.

Noise introduces some randomness to the pixels in the shadow, and provides a grainier (sic) result in output.

The addition of spread, as explained by Michael Stoddart, permits “real” outer glows to be created in InDesign CS2. (note: to create an outer glow: use [Paper], change the x and y offsets to 0 (zero), and the Blend mode to Normal.

Saving Back as InDesign CS

The InDesign Interchange (.inx) format when using File>Export, permits saving back in a format that can be read by InDesign CS (version 3.0).

To read this interchange format, users of InDesign CS will need to update to 3.0.1 April 2005 (CS2 Compatibility Update).

As the InDesign CS2 Readme and Help states: “Be aware that content created using functionality that is specific to InDesign CS2 might be modified or omitted when you open the file in InDesign CS. For example, footnotes and object styles (new features in InDesign CS2) drop out. However, object style attributes applied to page objects are preserved when possible.”

Therefore, from a Pre-press file handover perspective, PDF is still the recommended format. The PDF will hold all elements in the correct position as per the InDesign CS2 document.

The interchange format is to permit editing by someone who has not yet upgraded from InDesign CS to InDesign CS2 edit documents.

Placing layered Photoshop and PDF into InDesign CS2

Layers, a mechanism for separating objects in Photoshop have been a fundamental part of its makeup for over 10 years. Added in Acrobat 6.0/PDF 1.5, layer support is actually a mechanism for grouping objects. Calling them layers makes it a simple leap of understanding.

In InDesign CS, along with support for Acrobat 6.0/PDF 1.5 layer output matching the layers in the InDesign document.

InDesign CS2 has the ability to dynamically turn on/off layers from Photoshop and PDF files on placing:

In this simple Photoshop file example, there are two layers added to the top of the original image from the following Photoshop file:

There is a one-to-one mapping of layers (and Layer Sets) from the Photoshop file to the placed file in InDesign CS2. In this example, the layer named “correct colour” is a Levels Adjustment layer. The “correct sign” layer is a layer-masked colour correction of the sign.

At placement time, any of these layers can be toggled on/off.

In a Prepress environment, there could be multiple Adjustment layers correcting an image that can be turned on/off at a later stage. Rather than bouncing back-and-forth between Photoshop and InDesign to fix/correct colour – the multiple versions and corrections can be created once in multiple layers. When working in InDesign CS2, the layers can be turned on/off dynamically:

Multiple Page PDF Place

Related to layered file placement, InDesign CS2 also has the ability to place multiple page PDFs.

In the above dialog, the selected PDF has two pages. Only the previewed page on the left can be placed, or all/page range can be placed into the InDesign CS2 document.

After selecting “All” Pages, the “placement gun” is loaded with the first page. After placing this page, the gun remains loaded with the second page … and so forth.

Taking a multple page PDF and placing it back into InDesign for placement/work is easier with InDesign CS2.

CID font encoding

As discussed in InDesign Prepress: Export or Distill PDFs?, there has been a undercurrent of “exported PDFs are bad” form InDesign since version 1.0. The base reason of this has been the method of encoding fonts in the PDF files generated.

CID (Identity-H) encoding is a long supported mechanism of encoding Roman and non-Roman fonts in Postscript, and subsequently PDF. Adobe PostScript Level 2 RIPs and later fully support CID font encoding. Older and some non-Adobe RIPs have difficulty with CID font encoding.

In the above example, the OpenType Pro font Bickham Script Pro with OpenType contextual alternates turned on. The Preflight profile to the right is from Acrobat Professional 7.0 that errors on CID font encoding. This PDF does not have CID fonts. Another file created with some of the included Chinese and Japanese fonts did, expectantly, produce a PDF where the fonts are CID encoded.

This change will promote the use of Direct PDF export from InDesign CS2, especially in workflows where there is a “blind handover”, and the sender does not know the levels of RIPs used at the output end.

Shared PDF styles with Acrobat Distiller 7.0

Acrobat Distiller takes Postscript output from any application and converts this to PDF. It is the oldest and most ingenious part of the Acrobat family.

A constant request from the beginning of InDesign has been to “synchronise” the settings files between the Distiller and InDesign. Whilst each application has a different approach to making PDFs, the settings required to get to the PDF (DPI of images, font embedding requests, etc) can be standardised.

With InDesign CS2, you can open a .joboptions file from within the application; and this setting is “added” to the PDF export settings available. Also, this setting is loaded into other applications of the Creative Suite 2; including the Distiller.

Distiller 7.0 also adds the ability to force conversion of non-CMYK images into a nominated CMYK colour space. This is a major advance in the Distiller (and a long requested feature!). InDesign since version 1.0 has converted RGB elements into the output colours space (usually CMYK) — a handy catch-all for problems with placed elements.

Why use the Distiller with InDesign CS2? There are some additional controls that are highly useful in Distiller 7.0:

Under the Image settings, there is a button “Policy”. This permits a greater degree of control over the policy when the bitmaps do not meet the target resolution. It is similar to the Font embedding policies when fonts cannot be embedded into the resulting PDF.

Booklet Imposition

ALAP InBooklet SE, originally included in the PageMaker Plugin Pack for InDesign CS, is included with InDesign CS2.

Permitting 2-up Saddle Stitch, 2-up Perfect Bound, 2-up; 3-up; 4-up Consecutive.

Summary

Distiller 7.0 and InDesign CS2 add the finishing touches to trouble-free PDF, for print, workflows.

Combined into the Creative Suite 2, the collective features are heading toward Prepress perfection.

Friday, 22nd April, 2005

Christchurch Crowne Plaza Hotel. Their system says I have stayed here before. For the life of me, I just cannot remember every being in this hotel. Airtravel and Hotels are an occupational hazard. Someone has to invent a word for the feeling of not knowning where you are upon waking up in a hotel in a strange city.

Nick’s rules for staying in Hotels:

1. Write the room number you are staying in on your hand
2. Steal the spare soap to take home
3. If there is chocolate on the pillow, store it for family gifts when you get home

The first meeting in the morning passes, with a recommendation to visit Victoria Lookout. Obviously, all these places were named in the Queen Victoria era where people fawned over royalty.

My life and Allan’s are in his hands as we wind our way up to above 332 meters above Christchurch and look down on the city-on-the-Cantebury plain.

Allan, the Christchurch’s number 78 taxi driver, is an interesting codger. Secondly, he’s 78 years old. He’d rather be out driving a taxi than sitting at home. He’s been a car mechanic and insurance assessor; and one gets the opinion he’s had some sad turns of events in his life.

After the last meeting of the week, Allan and I head out to the Royal New Zealand Air Force Museum. Allan, in his younger days wanted to be a pilot. These earlier days coincided with World War 2; and his mum didn’t want to sign the papers permitting him to join.

Probably that’s why Allan is with us today. At the museum, it commemorates the 4149 New Zealand air force crew who lost their life in World War 2. Like the museum in Duxford, the names overwealm you – like Canada and to a lesser extent Australia – aircrews were trained overseas and faught for the Home Country and sadly died in their droves.

A Douglas Dakota, in RNZAF livery for the 1953 Queen Elizabeth Tour of New Zealand, is in the middle of the hanger surrounded by a Spitfire, donated RAAF Canberra, Avro Anson and other older and later model aircraft.

We wander down through the “Danger: Military Area” gate (chain-link fence gate, not locked!) to the other hangers to see aircraft restoration: an aluminium P40 and wooden Airspeed Oxford — the latter representing one of 299 of these used by the NZ air force and eventually sold to farmers as chicken sheds in the 1950s for 10 pounds.

In the main museum there is a Spitfire (Mark V?) from late in the war – in fact too late to see action – apart from staring in Reach For the Sky. Originally, this expensive and rare Spitfire was mounted in the open on just near the Christchurch airport entrance until the mid 1980s. The mounted Spitfire is now a cheaper fibreglass replica.

Time to leave Allan, and Christchurch. A special afternoon for us both. I wonder if Allan did take the rest of the day off. I hope he did.

Thursday, 21st April, 2005

I think I hear rain outside the window of my hotel room. Rain in Wellington defies all Newtonian physics by raining sidewides.

As the umbrella decides to have structural failure on the way to the first meeting, I an soaked when I arrive.

This job has its distinct downsides. A major downside is missing birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. This trip is Avril’s Birthday I miss. Thankfully, the present arrives on time, underbudget at home this morning.

The afternoon clears, and I have finished my last meeting early. There is no early flight to Christchurch via Qantas – so I decide to go to Mount Victoria and take some photos.

Sam, the taxi driver, shares stories from the Wellington side from my last attempt at visiting this city. In February, I and some of my fellow Adobe team members flew to within 50m of Wellington, turned around, and landed back in Auckland. In Wellington, the city was full of people not going anywhere. Sam also says that on the full-tide, with no wind, the harbour becomes becalmed – and the sea is enchanting. I’d love to see that.

From Mount Victoria lookout, there is a chinook (helicopter) lifting building supplies to a hillside behind the city; and planes fly underneath where we are standing to land at the ultra-exposed airport. Its such a bright, cloudless day that belies the true windy and changeable weather of this city.

To the airport; sleep on the short flight to Christchurch, leave my book on the plane as I am absolutely knackered after a very full week.

Through the open gate into NZs Defense area looking for secrets at the RNZAF Museum, Christchurch

A4 Skyhawk: NZs last line of defense, now mothballed. RNZAF Museum, Christchurch

Roll of Honor for 4149 NZ airforce during WW2. Always a sad sight. RNZAF Museum, Christchurch

Spitfire. RNZAF Museum, Christchurch

Douglas Dakota, decked our for Her Royal Highness in 1953. RNZAF Museum, Christchurch

Oak tree by the Avon. Christchurch, April 2005

Suit of armour in weird castle. Christchurch, April 2005

Christchurch, April 2005

Sign of the Kiwi. Christchurch, April 2005

Nick over Christchurch. Christchurch, April 2005

Sheep on the Summit. Christchurch, April 2005

TV Tower on the Summit. Christchurch, April 2005

Strange Alien Landing vessel, Mount Victoria. Wellington April 2005

Victorian era gun, Mount Victoria. Wellington April 2005

Wellington Airport: my nemesis. Wellington April 2005

Nick over Wellington. Wellington April 2005

Wellingtonian Skyline, Wellington April 2005

NZ Flax, Wellington April 2005

Two Weeks In India

Originally written during my fourth and last trip to India as an Application Engineer, this details two weeks of life on-the-road as a technical/presenter/trainer. Reading and editing this in early 2005, it’s interesting to see how hard the local India team works, and how hard they work Application Engineers. Customer names and non-Adobe people’s names are removed to protect the innocent. Some months after this trip, my job had a sea-change which doesn’t involve extensive travel such as below. Other personal observations have been edited to protect the not-so-innocent — Nick Hodge, March 2005.

Friday 6th September 2002

Last night there was a hoax bomb scare at Sydney International Airport tonight. US and UK decide to bomb airfields in Iraq. Bush is increasing his rhetoric against Saddam Hussein, working himself up for the anniversary of September 11th. Karzai, the leader of Afghanistan has an assassination attempt on his life. A strange time in the world; it seems like the drums of war are beating in a every increasing tempo. Probably not the smartest time to be travelling to India for 2 weeks.

There is no doubt from a business perspective that India needs extra work. Always a volatile market, it seems to be lagging a little in the region. Spending two weeks will permit longer visits to customers to move them into the current state of play with Adobe technology. Whilst Aaron has visited regularily in the previous 4 months, a concentrated effort can only help.

What makes this trip a little harder to aclimatise to is that this is the end of a week of holidays. Half way through I seemed to come somewhat mentally unstuck and unhinged. Somewhat disturbing to say the least. More than anything, it felt like an anxiety attack. I think I need to be “connected” more than I realise.

A small consolation is that the ticket is business class on Singapore Airlines. This will assist the 8hr + 5hr trip. Singapore Airlines also has inflight power, so I have more time to get ready before I arrive.

Saturday 7th September 2002

My prediction on world events is that Bush will highlight the involvement of Iraq in September 11th at the UN. He will use this as a reason to get rid of Saddam.

The flight from Sydney was pleasant. Managed to go through 8 chapters of the FrameMaker 7.0 Classroom in a Book. Arrived in Singapore on time, but the arrival gate was at one end of Singapore Airline’s gates – and the Delhi gate was at the exact opposite end. It must have been a good 1Km away! Thankfully, had just enough time to change my money to Indian Rupees.

Thanks to the 15 hours of 1980s music, getting through the FrameMaker stuff is much easier. Whilst not a FrameMaker neophyte, I am gaining more respect for the composition engine. Whilst InDesign has all the gliz and glamour of a Porsche, sometimes you want a BMW that goes from point a to point b and easily generates documents.

Safely collected by Angiah at Delhi airport. You can see the dust as you decend into the lights. This is strange as its rained here recently. The smell is interesting, too. The culture shock isn’t too great. Hotel. SMS Avril. BBC World. Email. Sleep.

Sunday 8th September 2002

Well, the world seems to be in one piece still. That can only be good news.

Spent the day finishing off the FrameMaker 7 Classroom in a Book, and then starting to prepare the content for the FrameMaker session. As a part of the demo, I had installed the Microsoft Voice SDK; but I think that I need to do this in a controlled environment because OfficeXP went haywire attempting to launch PowerPoint. I think it was wanting to install the voice stuff on the server from Sydney. Through a 28.8Kb modem connection: I don’t think so!

Another frustration: the power supply here is bogus. The power went off for 5-15seconds about 6 times today. As my laptop battery doesn’t seem to be recharging successfully from the power, this causes the laptop to immediately shutdown. I hope I am not frying the poor Dell.

Had dinner with Angiah and Niyam in the hotel. Niyam is an interesting character; someone the local team uses as a presenter when Aaron and/or I am not around. Exchanged our life histories, and points of view – especially on Opensource and the whole movement.

Monday 9th September 2002

Up at 6am. In fact, earlier than this as my insides came to terms with the environment. Light breakfast and some tablets help out. Keep drinking water. Finishing off preparation for the events on the 11th and 13th with FrameMaker. Using an amalgam of the CIB stuff plus the excellent demo created by the FrameMaker team. Interesting to see the reaction based on the content; its hard to factor in because I don’t know the level of the audience, so some of this will change at demo time. Have to finish this off tonight, plus prepare for the GoLive demo tomorrow afternoon.

Being picked up at 9.30am for a 45 minute trip to visit a customer. These are the guys the local team want to start to use InDesign in production. As there is a drop-dead date of November on PR from Adobe on this, its going to be a tough ask to get anything done by that time. I have bought the latest issues of Australian Cosmopolitan and Cleo to show how this stuff prints. Spoke to Aaron from the car on the way. The picture seems “hazy” as to output situation. This is going to be interesting to say the least.

Gave them the whole ACP story. Many questions on spot colours etc (my favourite topic in InDesign)

Lunch in the centre of the city at a Chinese food place. Strange to eat Chinese food in India. Found out at lunch that Quark sells for about Re20K (AU$1K) here. QuarkXpress 5.0. Quark are doing deals in their adopted home country.

Afternoon back at the customer’s place. Took one of their QuarkXpress documents and opened it perfectly in InDesign 2.0. Not even major text reflow issues. Managed to output this to their HP5000 internal postscript black and white laser, and found that their printer use Scitex Postscript Level 2 style output.

Added lots of transparency effects onto the first page spread, generated a rather large Postscript file (200Mb) — export PDF (40Mb) and Distiller 5.0 (10Mb) the same first page spread for them to test with proofing (Epson proofer, at the printer end) and also get film from. Probably get to see this when I visited them next week.

The issue with these guys is getting momentum and finding a core reason for them to move to InDesign style workflows. We cannot determine the motivations at the present time, but it seems that the IT guys are at least keen to progress, and will push it through.

Heard on the news that someone managed to get a knife through security at Mumbai international airport and attempted to hijack a flight from Mumbai to the Maldives. Let’s hope that someone plugs that security hole before I get there.

Lots of sleep.

Tuesday 10th September 2002

Read in the paper about the Mumbai airport security problem. Everyone seems to be pointing the finger at someone else, not even sure “where the knife came from”. A train crash outside Calcutta. The minister was blaming sabotage before getting evidence. Everyone here in control is a political player, and wants to ensure that someone else is blamed for problems. What a strange country.

Fly to Bangalore.

I managed to “sign” myself through the features of InDesign – especially in comparison to QuarkXpress.

Off to lunch (south indian vegetarian at some government run hotel that was closed for renovations) then to a government customer. In a government complex in Delhi, and looks like any gov’t organisation the world over. Their video conferencing facility acted as a demonstration centre: so I managed to demonstrate 7 Adobe applications in a “network publishing” context. Mainly stressing how they work together, and this should change their attitude.

In the middle of an afternoon meeting, the heavens open up. The rain storm cleared the skies. Delhi, without the heat and the dust, is a great city. It needs to rain more often.

At the airport, flying India Airlines. Not my favourite airline, but security is very tight. Everything is checked twice before you get onto the plane – including two physical pat downs, and you also have to point out personally your checked-in baggage to ensure it gets onto the plane.

Arrived at Bangalore safely at 11.00pm, knowing I have 2-3 hours of work to get through. Check the Photoshop installation (which was causing me hassle in Delhi), run through some finer points of the FrameMaker demonstration. Bed at 2am.

Wednesday, 11th September 2002

Up at 6.30am, in dread for what is going to happen during the day – being September 11th.

Go through another quick run through of the demo of FrameMaker. At 9am, go to the room and meet Shipra, reaquaint myself with Shanavas from End to End. We have a good 110 people for the FrameMaker session, with 90 staying for the Acrobat advanced session. The demonstration goes well, and as always I have more content than I require to fill the time (something I was concerned about!) Many jibes at Microsoft, Australians and unstructured publishing. It seemed like all knew what XML was, but not many were using FrameMaker 7. This bodes well for sales. Mahdu, director of Quebec Computing, distributes WebWorks Publisher and does FrameMaker-related sales almost exclusively. Hopefully he will translate the day into sales. I knocked the power cord of my laptop out during the demonstration 3 times. Laptop, having no battery backup, crashed. Not a good look at all.

Lunch was in the Park Hotel; which must have started/opened at the height of the dot-com boom, as everything has an “i-theme” and the rooms are trendy black and purple. The lunch was in a Spanish-Indian restaurant. Strange mix of cuisine. I wonder if this is to do with the Portugeuse influence of Goa, a few hundred kms to the west of Bangalore?

Off to another customer. The Bangalore office is a hub for the southern region, but by no means the central decision making body. I strongly recommended adding Pitstop to their workflow to ensure the quality of PDF. They have purchased a copy of Quite Revealing. Cool! I may have got a little heated and frustrated in some of my responses to all. [Presentation to 10 people]

Found that I hadn’t put my battery into the laptop correctly, so it was unable to recharge. Bugger, Bugger, Bugger.

Bed early tonight. Thankfully, its been a day of remembering rather than destruction. Time to sleep.

Thursday, 12th September 2002.

Today is a “Bandh” in Kanataka (the state that Bangalore resides in) — a general strike. Its due to some protest over water supplies to the Tamil Nadu state that Chennai resides in. It means that at least one of our appointments today has been cancelled as the people decide to stay at home.

I read in the paper that in one previous general strike that there were protests on the street resulting in “unneeded deaths”; and yesterday there were radicals distrupting traffic and breaking windows in Tamil Nadu based buses. Any cars with Tamil Nadu state-number plates were “recommended” to stay off the street so as not to cause disruption. OK, this is a good place to be right now. Even Angiah is not adventurous enough to go far from the hotel.

Up early, 6.30am. Ready for a full day including flying to Chennai.

Went to another customer, a smaller local newspaper, printed in the local language and english. The streets were very quiet due to this strike.

Their workflow is a similar copydot scanning workflow, with a heavy reliance on OPI. They are still on Photoshop 5.5, and therefore I showed them the new world of PDF, Photoshop PDF with vector information intact — and managed to squeeze in a demonstration of InDesign/InCopy. It seems that the per-seat cost of QPS (Quark Publishing System) is around Rs90,000/- whereas InCopy with SmartConnection Pro is Rs$35,000/-. QPS is only a year old, so it hasn’t paid for itself, yet. They are using Agfa RIPs and are doing CtP today. Copydot scanning (two Eskofots installed) must have cost them lots of US$! [Presentation to 7 people]

In the afternoon, Angiah and I quickly went out and grabbed some Bangalorian snaps for future roadshow content.

Before we left the hotel for the airport and Chennai, there were people chanting; seemingly protesting on the street – or so I thought. It is some festival of Ganesha where the locals throw plaster-cast versions of Ganesha into the ‘lake’ in Bangalore. I have yet to determine why. The Bangalorians follow their large Ganesha on a cart and loudly progress through the streets.

Airport, Jet Airlines flight on an ATR-72-500 (propeller) plan and landing in Chennai uneventful. Took the flight to explain the printing process to Angiah.

Friday 13th September 2002.

So called “black friday” in the Western world is no impediment in India.

More unrest in the Jammu/Kashmir “line of control” area between India and Pakistan. I fear that this will not end well. There is a significant unrest between the Hindus and the Muslims here. About a year ago, in the Gujarat state, there was systematic ethnic cleansing – started by Hindu-based politicans. The west has heard very little about this. The balance the the BJP party (currently in power nationally) is a party lead by Sonia Ghandi. She is a left-leaning politican who is in fact Italian. The political arrows aimed at her because of her Italian heritage are many, including claims of corrupt deals with military equipment and heritage items. Whilst religion plays a part of politics here and in Pakistan, there is little hope for a peaceful resolve. This is highly ironic as both Islam and Hindu beliefs are very peaceful – until people get involved.

Heavy rainfall in Delhi “is causing chaos” – including at the Adobe office. Evidendly, the basement floor has been flooded again, causing a “day off” in India whilst they pump out the excess water. Bad design that I hope doesn’t befall the new office being opened in the next couple of months by San Jose execs.

The Sheraton in Chennai is old, and starting to be very tired. Even the employees are tired. They upgraded my room to a “suite”, but a larger room makes you even more lonely. I will resist the upgrades in the future. Why don’t Indian hotels supply Intertouch – faster internet access?

It looks like the US and Iraq don’t see eye to eye on “weapons of mass murder”. Saddam, the master of brinkmanship, will take this to the wire again. The central question is the resolve of GW to take this to its end. At least the news on the Adobe front looks good. There was even a mention on CNN of the “better than expected” Q3 results.

The FrameMaker/Acrobat event in Chennai haf 140/90 people respectively at the event. Nothing contriversial or new as a part of the demonstration. Nearly all had never attended another Adobe show, and few had FrameMaker — bodes will for sales.

Afternoon preparing for the two customer visits tomorrow, and the Monday GoLive 6.0 and AfterEffects 5.5 Press demonstration in Delhi. Re-learning more applications. Oh joy.

Saturday 14th September 2002.

Whoops! I’ve just realised I’ve missed the Body Corporate meeting back in Sydney. I wonder if anyone will notice/care.

Working today, believe it or not. We have two customers to visit.

I think I have mentally decided that my time is best spent with technical management types rather than the mass end-users. Speaking to end users in large customers at early stages of change is only upsetting and they do not get the big picture. Management can clearly express the problems across the board, and you have an opportunity to solve their problems. Instead of small feature questions …

After these visits, we fly back to New Delhi with Jet Airlines.

Presentation to a limited number of people, showed ID2 and PS7 (PS7 still acting wierdly on my laptop: I think I am due for an OS overhaul, or at least a reinstall of probably IE6). This customer has their own Unix-based page makeup system, but also have about 30 licenses of QuarkXpress. They “complained” that the Distiller 5.0 wasn’t taking QuarkXpress output where an EPS saved from Photoshop with JPEG compression and printed as separations — the image was only on the black plate. Its because QuarkXpress’ separation engine isn’t smart enough to decode the JPEG data in the EPS (or strip the EPS open) and separate it. Further proof that QuarkXpress’ separation engine is “old and tired”

Talked to the second customer’s prepress people on Photoshop 7.0, InDesign 2.0 and Acrobat/PDF. A few indepth InDesign questions as they transition their internal ad makeup to InDesign. Finish at 5.00pm and off to the airport.

Nearly 3 hour flight to Delhi. Evidently, Delhi has been innundated with rain again, causing traffic jams etc. There was no evidence of this when I arrived, but it was 30degC and very humid. Bed at 11.30pm, ready to go at 5.00am!

Sunday 15th September 2002

Up at 5:00am for a long, long drive to Agra, the site of the Taj Mahal. Agra is south-east of New Delhi, along a dual lane highway for 4 hours. Whilst the road is dual lane, this doesn’t stop people coming the wrong way on your side of the road. Indians do not believe in road rules, and never going backwards. The number of near misses on this trip counted at least 4.

I was accompanied bu Angiah and Krishnan from FutureSoft; along with the driver for the car. When you hire a car in India, you get the driver too. Noone in their right mind would drive themselves on this road!

Count: 6 monkeys, 5 camels and 1 bear. We almost ran over 2 twos and 2 people.

There was a McDonalds about 1 hour out of Agra, which we visited on the way in and out.

At the Taj, you park about 2-3Kms from the main site. Beating off kids trying to sell crap the instant you get out the car, ignoring them is a difficult task! Walk up to the Taj entrance. Cost of entry for foreigners: Rs250. Cost for Indians: Rs10. Rs250 is still only AU$10. Further two levels of security check, and inside looking at this wonder of the world.

The Taj is an Islamic building, made by an Islamic king as a tomb for his wife. He spent the final years of his life in the “Red Fort” looking out a window on the Taj. Evidently, it was built over a Hindu temple. Therefore, the Hindu extremists want to “blow up the Taj and rebuild the temple” — hence, the strict security.

The Taj itself is made of white marble. Inside the darkness (representing death) there is a very, very small casket replica where this Queen is entombed. When you leave this inside area out into the sunshine, the white marble (which represents life) which blinds you. Its an impressive construction in this part of the world.

4 hours back, McDonalds and hotel. Email photo of Taj journey to all!

A shower and sleep was very welcome. And the pepperoni pizza, too.

Monday 16th September 2002

Alarm at 6.30am. Defer. Alarm at 8:00am; have to get up now. Pickup at 9:00am for a large customer visit. Upon arrival, find out this is a 4 hour training session! Eeek. Time to pretend I know something and start an ad-hoc training course. One person in open Q&A asked about InCopy and InDesign – managed to do a 10 minute demo. Managed to generate a training course, creating vector/bitmap work in Photoshop 7, and weave in Photoshop 7 new features.

Two hour, yes, two hour car ride to the next customer to do a demonstration of GoLive 6 and AfterEffects 5.5. Not 100% prepared, and had to do the demo on their PC. This makes it very difficult to demonstrate without key demo files, Photoshop, Illustrator etc. Also with GoLive, the key part is the Dynamic Content stuff – again requires specific configuration that can take 30-40 minutes to prepare. Not a good look doing it this way. I will insist that this was a waste of time at the beginning of the demonstration.

Get back to the hotel at 6.30pm, do some emails and have a Thai dinner. Good hotel restaurant. Started to read “The Last Viceroy” — all about Louis Mountbatten in the 1940’s when England was letting India go. Many interesting comments about India that are still relevant today. Hindus and Muslims still seem keen to kill each other – as is evidenced in the elections in Kashmir. 300 people have died just due to the elections. What a crazy world we live in. Or is this just India?

Tuesday 17th September 2002

Up at 6.30am. Not feeling 100%, so breakfast is not on the cards this morning. Thank goodness for excedrin, stemetil, lomotil, berocca and museli bars. Pickup early at 8:00am for an engineering institute.

The visit was infact to a customer – a part of the Indian Govt. Gotta love socialism! These guys have purchased and bought into the Acrobat story, but want to have a server-based PDF creation mechanism for Autocad files.

Last meeting meeting is “cancelled”. OK, that does it for today. What a waste of a day. Nothing gained at all, really.

Early to bed for a 4:00am wakeup to fly to Mumbai.

Wednesday 18th September 2002

Up at 3:00am. Earlier than the alarm clock! Off from the hotel at 5:00am for a 6:50am flight to Mumbai. Sleep most of the way.

The Regent has changed its name to Taj Lands End. OK. But that doesn’t make the highspeed internet access in the room work. No time to work it out now. I’ll wait until this evening to get it going. Need to reinstall software; probably IE6 is a good place to start.

Off to a large customer in the main city. 1hr later, meet the head of Production. It was good to converse on issues in the prepress world. I need to formalise a process of supporting these guys with PDF and issues with their Harlequin 5.1rx RIPs. Spending more time with them tomorrow. Had issues with Distiller made PDFs not RIPping; probably due to LAB colours in the .ps that Distiller passes through.

One hour and 30 minutes later, arrive at another customer. Do 6 application demonstration in 3hrs45minutes to about 12 people. I wish things would go to the scheduled plan in India, rather than meander into whatever.

Another 1hr drive back to the hotel. Mumbai has notorious traffic issues. Friday is “off” as its the Lord Ganesh day. Angiah and I will spend the time in some instensive training on a couple of issues.

Spend the night preparing for large customer tomorrow. Late to bed.

Thursday 19th September 2002

In the morning, do a Photoshop 7/InDesign 2 training/presentation to designers. Hopefully they liked what they saw.

Emergency trip (45minutes) to a magazine publisher; probably one the of biggest magazine publishers in Mumbai to fix up PPD/printing issues to Linotronic style devices. They print out separations to Distiller to PDF to the RIP; which seems to work OK from InDesign 2.0. Their magazine is currently transitioning from Quark to InDesign, and other titles will transition soon. This is good news. At least the output issues are solved, and their are able to get film out.

Back to large customer for a presention to the prepress/workflow guys (1 hour trip). Spent time going through Pitstop and why not everything can be solved with Photoshop (they were probably also using Photoshop as a word processor!). Highlight Quite Revealing as well, and InDesign as a prepress tool! Including fixing up of LAB (Postscript colour management turned on). Pitstop as a Quality Circle. Hopefully they use Pitstop, as this will help them out in many areas.

After finishing here, decided to have dinner with local team members at the Taj Mahal hotel, near the Gateway to India. Quick photograph in the darkness then off for a 1 hour trip back to the hotel. I think I spent 4 hours in the car today just around Mumbai!

Late to bed, high speed internet access is down (surprise). If it were working, then I would have gone to bed really late.

Friday 20th September 2002

We are going to attempt to get back to the large customer this morning and finish off the presentations. Today is Lord Ganesh(a) day; the day you immerse your personal Ganesha for his once-a-year wash. OK, but it seems that most of the city stops! Last day of official work in India (unless an emergency arrives)

One hour trip and present Acrobat for business use. Designer, who asked me yesterday about “Accelio forms” (reads the web too much), got to see Acrobat forms including saving to a database.

One hour back, lunch, review the two weeks and determine the next steps. Goodbye to local team. Do emails and catch up with Aaron. Work, and early to bed I think.

Saturday 21st September 2002

Up late-ish, breakfast and pack. Basically, the trip is over. Now the waiting for time to the airport.

Had an escort and a driver in the car to the airport. Through customs and onto the plane. This flight is a Manchester-Mumbai-Singapore flight, so there were many bemused Poms on the ground in Mumbai. Had to explain the strange security situation in Mumbai to confused english crowd. Whilst I am no India expert, I’ve spent two weeks here and the confusion is now par for the course.

Sunday 22nd September 2002

Singapore early in the morning, just enough time to do the exact reverse of a couple of weeks ago: bathroom, money exchange, lounge. I literally walked off one plane and onto the other with no waiting. Bees dick.

Sydney late in the afternoon. Good to be home.

Shanghai, night lights, downtown

Famous tower in Shanghai

Seagull Restaurant, on the River in Shanghai

At the gate, Hong Kong airport

In Shanghai, All trucks are this sky-blur colour

Bridge, Shanghai

Some of the massive freeway/overpass system in Shanghai

Some of the massive freeway/overpass system in Shanghai

Shanghai suburbia

A common question via email and on mailing lists

: what are these

white boxes

I see in my PDF

?

There are two “white box” phenomena, both ex

plainable and both are non-fatal in your PDFs

generated from InDesign

CS.

Source InDesign file:

In this source file

, there is a spot colour (PANTONE 285C)

,

text

+

drop shadow

and a Photoshop file with transparency placed over the top.

Using S

eparation Preview (Window>Output Preview>Separation Preview), the page looks

correct

:

Using either File>Print to a Postscript file and Distilling, or File>Export as Adobe PDF using the [Press] settings, and the [High Resolution] Transparency Flattener style, results in an Acrobat 4.0/PDF 1.3 file (ref:)

Once you open the file in Acrobat 5.0 or 6.0, the following appears:

(a) depicts the “white box phenomena 1” and (b) depicts “white box phenomena 2”

(a) White Box 1: Overprint Preview

This is simple to resolve: Turn on Overprint Preview in Acrobat 5.0 or 6.0 (the free Adobe Reader does not show overprint preview)

The result is as follows. The white boxes dissappear. What are they? Firstly, white is not really white. White is infact a command in Postscript to “Knockout”. This knockout removes all colourants (printed elements) from imaging, and what shows through is the paper stock (substrate). The white we are seeing here is in fact a command to “knockout all process colours to permit the spot colour underneath to show” Overprint preview expresses these overprint/knockout commands in the PDF, and we get the result as below. The Separation Preview in Acrobat 6.0 Professional will also show the PDF correctly. Printing separations to a mjaority of devices will result in the correct output.

Some output devices are not smart enough to recognise the special overprint/knockout commands. Devices that only print Process colours, or convert the spot colours to process to proof the output may result in a view as above. This is not a limitation/bug in InDesign, but rather these output devices not respecting Acrobat 4.0/PDF1.3 constructs.

(b) White Box 2: Image/Vector Smoothing

This white box, or in fact white line, is the edge of an atomic region in the Transparency Flattened PDF. To explain this, here is the same PDF displayed using Wireframe; a feature of Enfocus Pitstop Professional:

You can see that this simple InDesign construct is split into multiple elements. The white line/box we are seeing is on the edge of one of these regions. This “breaking up” of seemingly simple InDesign elements is a function of the Transparency Flattener. Acrobat 4.0/PDF1.3 (and Postscript) cannot directly represent the transparency features. The Transparent elements are broken down into simpler atomic regions resulting in a file that will output and separate correctly.

The white lines/boxes are in fact Acrobat anti-aliasing (smoothing) the edges of these boxes. In ‘normal’ PDFs, this smoothing generates a pleasant, well, smooth, graphic elements. In a Flattened high-quality PDF, these lines are intrusive.

There is a major difference when you turn off smoothing (Smooth line art and Smooth image) in Edit>Preferences in Acrobat:

RIPs and other output devices do not smooth in a similar way, so these lines will not appear.

Suggestions for On-screen PDFs

If you are making a PDF for onscreen use, my strong suggestions are:

1. When printing/exporting, use the Ink Manager to “Convert all Spots to Process”. On screen PDFs don’t need many PANTONE colourants
2. Export as Acrobat 5.0/PDF1.4. This will result in a PDF that is not Transparency Flattened, but the PDF should be smaller and faster to display. The Reader 5.0 has been available since 2001, and is widely available. Including for MacOS 9.

Welcome to Adobe InDesign CS

For more indepth articles: Adobe InDesign: Prepress Techniques

This is written in a similar manner to: Acrobat 6.0 Professional: Graphics, Print, Prepress Overview

Since writing this introduction, Adobe has released: Adobe InDesign CS Printing Guide for Service Providers

InDesign CS, the third major revision of InDesign, contains many new prepress features that solidifies my belief that InDesign is the premiere desktop prepress tool on the market today.

Having worked between many pre-release testers and the Product Team and Engineers for nearly two years – it is such a relief to be able to talk publically about all the “new stuff”

What is this Adobe Creative Suite?

The Adobe Creative Suite is a new application that combines the full desktop versions of Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS, InDesign CS, GoLive CS and Acrobat 6.0 Professional with a new piece of technology called Version Cue. This new application installs with a single serial number, comes on single CD and is a application suite. This InDesign CS that comes with either Creative Suite Premium or Standard is the same as the single copy version.

System Requirements

InDesign CS (and the other CS applications) requires Windows 2000sp3, Windows XP Home or Professional. On the Mac, InDesign CS like Acrobat 6.0 requires at least MacOS X 10.2.4. That’s correct: no MacOS 9 support. If you are receiving InDesign CS files, you are going to need a MacOS X to run the files out. From a high quality print perspective, saving backwards is not an option.

New Prepress Features

Separation Preview

Having been exposed to this particular piece of engineering since prior to InDesign 2.0’s announcement, this has to be my favourite feature. It alone will change prepress perceptions of InDesign’s status as the best tool to work with on the desktop.

Until the advent of Quite Revealingfor Acrobat 4/5, Acrobat 6.0 Professional (Acrobat 6.0 Professional: Graphics, Print, Prepress Overview)- the only way to preview the plates that would appear at some stage of the print process was to print separations as Postscript and Distill.

InDesign CS adds a new feature called Separation Preview that is a “mode” for layout. You can work completely in this mode; placing images, changing swatches, editing text if you like – and see how the final plates will appear whilst still editing the document.

The above shows Cyan and Black plates, with a Ink Density count on a per-plate basis.

This shows a separation preview highlighting one spot colour, with the black text knocking out correctly.

I remember first seeing this feature and being on cloud 9 for hours. It has to be experienced. Thanks Matt.

Flattener Preview

Transparency, the ground-breaking set of features added in InDesign 2.0, provides designers scope to create eye catching layouts. When it comes to output, however, some of the print aspects require finessing.

To aid the print side, the Flattener Preview will show what elements are going to be effected by transparency, and in which way. The Transparency Flattener is still required in Postscript 2/3 and PDF/X workflows.

The areas highlighted in red above are Transparent Objects that will result in some transparency flattening at output.

Ink Limit Preflight

Common in newsprint and other print applications where the total ink density is tightly controlled, InDesign CS will now permit a preview of a layout – and highlight elements that are above to total ink limit as specified.

In the image above, an Ink coverage limit of 280% is specified: the areas highlighted in red on the page have more ink coverage than this percentage.

Bleeds and Slugs

No, this is not going postal on the evil garden pests. InDesign 2.0 added the ability to print with independent bleed-per-side in a document. In InDesign CS, documents can be created with predefined bleed and slug areas:

These predefined Bleeds and Slugs can be used when printing, without retyping the appropriate values.

In this image, Print Preview with Bleed has been requested.

To make life easier when creating documents in InDesign CS, page dimensions including Bleeds and Slugs can be saved.

Another commonly requested feature from longtime QuarkXpress users is the ability to see the ‘page edge’ when placing elements. Guess what, its here:

In the above screen dump, the black line is the trim size of the page, clearly shown through the image.

Word Count

Not strictly a Prepress feature, but I am going to incorporate it here! Yes, there is a word count in InDesign CS:

Not only a word count: InDesign CS also counts sentences, lines and characters. No more need for InDesign 2.0: Word Count using Visual Basic! The above image depicts a text frame that contains a certain number of characters/words etc, and the “+61” indicates that there is overset text.

Info Palette

In PDF delivery of final for-print documents, the two major errors that cause prepress headaches are RGB elements and low resolution images. InDesign always converted RGB elements in bitmaps to CMYK (if printing CMYK). InDesign CS adds the conversion of elements in RGB that are inside placed PDF elements to CMYK. (InDesign 2.0 and CS have a technique that will force EPS into CMYK or Greyscale: InDesign 2.0: Printing Output Choices and Flattener Tricks (including force Greyscale export!))

On the matter of DPI, however, there has been a reliance on the designer on “guessing” the print DPI (otherwise known as effective DPI) by calculating the percentage scaling by the original DPI. InDesign CS has a new palette known as the Info palette that previews the DPI of a placed image element:

The Info palette above shows that the placed image is a JPEG in the RGB colourspace, and due to scaling of the image, its print (effective) resolution is 288dpi in both dimensions.

Mixed Ink Support

An ink swatch in InDesign CS can be what is a Mixed Ink swatch containing spot colours and process colours.

InDesign CS also adds a new type of swatch known as Mixed Ink Group which eases the mixing of two spot colours into a varying combination of percentages.

Support for Duotone Photoshop files

DCS is the thorn in the side of the Prepress professional. It forces print workflows into separated output at a very early stage – and is a legacy of QuarkXpress. In our modern, composite workflows – DCS is a legacy that would be rather forgotten.

InDesign CS changes the scene in rather a dramatic way. DCS 1 and 2 files created from Photoshop (bitmaps only) placed into InDesign CS are recombined into composite for composite PDF/Postscript output. DCS1, for the sake of clarity, is a preseparated format where each plate is broken into a file: one each for C, M, Y and K (there is not spot colour support in DCS1). DCS2, in comparison, is a single file containing each plate – and can support spot colours.

For Photoshop files and designs that contain vector elements and transparency, this technique still applies: InDesign 2.0: Photoshop with Spots, InDesign and Composite PDF

InDesign CS also includes support for TIFF with spot colour channels, Photoshop PSD with spot channels (including Duotones, Tritones and Quadtones) and Photoshop EPS.

PDF/X Support

Like Acrobat 6.0, InDesign CS supports exporting PDFs are PDF/X compliant. More than just a version PDF, compliance also involves ensuring the elements used in the PDF match the strict ISO specification.

What is PDF/X? From the FAQ on the PDF/X site: “PDF/X is not an alternative to PDF, it’s a focused subset of PDF designed specifically for reliable prepress data interchange. It’s also an application standard, as well as a file format standard. In other words, it defines how applications creating and reading PDF/X files should behave.”

PDF/X is a set of international standards: PDF/X-1a:2001 (ISO 15930-1:2001) and PDF/X-3 (ISO 15930-3:2002). PDF is a very broad format: it permits the creation of documents ready for web delivery through to very high quality book production. PDF/X simplifies what can be in a PDF to a known range of parameters. This known, and generally acceptable range therefore gives other software in the workflow a known target. If a PDF is PDF/X compliant, there are two keys added to the PDF file.

Print Workflow Changes

A topic deeply exposed here InDesign 2.0 Prepress Tips & Techniques, there has been a fundamental change in the mechanism InDesign CS uses to print placed PDFs. Placed PDFs (and therefore placed native .ai files, too) pass through a different print mechanism similar to printing through the transparency flattener. A side effect of this print mechanism is that elements are converted to the Print colour space (CMYK, Greyscale) plus a new side effect. The placed elements are Trapped.

With InDesign CS, placed PDFs pass through InDesign’s inbuilt Trapping engine. Now you can trap composite, untrapped PDFs from various sources (like QuarkXpress) and generate a composite trapped Postscript file, and therefore PDF. This technique still applies: InDesign 2.0: Generating Composite, Trapped PDFs

A small change, and probably not documented anywhere, is the ability scale in the “decimal point” range when printing. InDesign 2.0 had a restriction of scaling at print time in whole number increments (100%, 101%, 102% etc) whereas InDesign CS supports percentages such as 100.1%. This is especially required in packaging style printing on flexographic presses.

Summary

If you are into laying out documents with great design, InDesign CS raises the bar for its competitors. From a Prepress perspective, InDesign CS is distinctly ahead of the crowd.