PDF – Size does matter

[Peter Dee]

Only yesterday I couldn’t produce a full size cut file for some stand-off letters in Illustrator. I was forced to scale it down.
Adobe need to do some catching up.

[David Rowland]

i learnt that a little while ago, i was lookinf at empty pdf documents then noticed they were ripping.

Now looking into PDF Fusion, just installing it

[Alan Drury]

Dave, let us know how you get on with Fusion. Incidentally CutePDF and other print based pdf makers have a similar issue. I queeried this with Acro (Cute) and their responce was;
Hello Alan

Unfortunately, that’s the limitation of the Postscript Printer driver.
We can do nothing about it.

Regards,
Support Team
Acro Software Inc

Corel Draw has a working page size of 150 feet – Illustrator is about 220inches, Corel will publish the pdf fine, some RIPS will take its size, I think Mimmakis do and some may not. Worth being aware of though.
Alan D

[David Rowland]

Im looking at Fusion thinking it is comerical Acrobat reader at the moment… maybe im missing something.

Wasatch will read large PDF

[Alan Drury]

PDF Fusion is a Corel product http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/ … bview=tab0 it is a rebadged AND enhanced version of something else, (name escapes me at the moment) follow link for full spec.
Alan D

[Andrew Martin]

excuse my ignorance here… but why do you need to make such a large PDF ?

[Alan Drury]

Because I send artwork out for digital printing and some banners in particular are over 5 metres.
Alan D

[Andrew Martin]

My customers who send me artwork for their large banners usually send artwork scaled at either 25% or 50% and i never have a problem, unless they have used low res images in their designs.

Don’t get me wrong Alan I was just curious to know why a full size artwork is really necessary.

[Alan Drury]

They send you scaled artwork probably because they are using Adobe products and can’t do stuff full size even if they wanted to. I like working in actual size I believe it reduces sizing mistakes and unexpected results, Bitmaps are the correct output resolution at generation and the output guys don’t have to do anything except print it. When I do vehicles with vinyl or set stationery I wouldn’t contemplate working in anything other than actual size so why do it for digital print when you don’t have to.
Alan D

[David Rowland]

all our stuff is full size pdf… its the illustrator users that insist on all this scaling…

have printed stuff wrong size because of bad communication

[Gavin MacMillan]

We have come across this problem in the past, good to have a clear understanding of what the limitation are.

We also work in full size and send files at final size wherever possible.

[David Rowland]

recently working on a number of half sized artwork to print and then one other bit gets worked on by a designer who wasn’t the same designer who did the rest.

The scaling got all messed up… it anoy’s me that illustrator operators cant do 1:1

[Hugh Potter]

I had a similar occurrence this past few weeks,

I designed a banner at 8m x 2m in X5, made the page size the same and sent the file,

the recipient could not open it / was looking at a blank document,

I suggested it was ok and to open it / import it into corel / ai, etc. and it’s there, in the end I sent a scaled down (25%) design but… while the object size was 25%, the document size was a bit bigger.

printer queried the size not matching but i confirmed that the top edge of he banner was 8m and the short edge 2m,

I got back an 8×2 banner with an irregular shaped white border which made the banner totally useless. the customer didn’t want it re-hemmed and down to 7m x 1.4m. understandably.

speaking to the boss there, he admitted he’d have queried the border but, as i’d ok’d the artwork…….. etc.

the upshot was that because adobe is soooo bloody stupid in this matter, it’s cost me another £200 (on top of near £300) to get the right size banner, as the original -which i recall had only a 50mm oversize on the document- couldn’t be seen correctly.

[Martin Grimmer]

Agree limitation is a complete pain in Illustrator…

Hugh – to possibly avoid similar in future – even if you have to scale down, work out the finished (say 25%) size, and use these dimensions for new file document file – cut and paste into new file and this should then completely fill bounding box 100% accurate with no chance of white border errors.

Agree shouldn’t have to do this and Adobe should stop limitations.

MArtin

[Alan Drury]

Andrew, I’m the same as those above. Adobe – the industry standard (chortle) are the reason some people work to scale. even their own Reader can’t display larger stuff and in this day and age should not be necessary to scale. Signmakers are professional, Adobe is professional software, should be for the price they charge for it and it should be able to do large stuff. Corel has been able to do itf for years.
Alan D

[David Rowland]

Fusion sucks…. struggles with big files… adobe reader will start to draw the image straight away but fusion i am waiting… so uninstall for it i think

[Alan Drury]

Dave, I’ve just ordered PDF Fusion. I’ll let you know how I find it.
Alan D