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tpicco · Jun 21, 2007, 09:22 AM

Sadly, more and more printers are asking solely for one-page-at-a-time PDFs... and I can certainly accommodate them, but I dislike the idea that I no longer have any real support or professional back-up at the printing plant. Ah well... so be it... this is a topic for a different thread.

The question:
When I am putting together my magazine, I get many supplied PDFs from clients as ad material, which I then position in my InDesign files as imported art. Then I create "Printer's PDFs" using the printer's suppled settings for my PDF creation. And every now n then, some artwork vanishes from the supplied PDFs... usually it's a photo or a logo...

Am I doing something wrong?

Do I have to open, and fuss with, every supplied PDF to make sure it will process properly?

Are there any directions or additional info I can clearly state to my advertisers so when they to supply me with PDFs I do not have any rude surprises??

roller · Jun 21, 2007, 10:23 AM

That's strange... You have standalone ads in PDF format that lose a part of the info in the supplied PDF when you export? Do I have that right? You don't lose the whole PDF, just elements contained within?

tpicco · Jun 21, 2007, 12:10 PM

I get an ad from an advertiser. I import it into the InDesign file I am using for my magazine layout. Then I make a PDF from my InDesign file, including the advertiser's ad, and various pages of type & editorial & such... and in some of the supplied PDFs, parts of the pdf vanish...

I will try to post a sample shortly...

tpicco · Jun 21, 2007, 12:40 PM

In the image above, a screenshot of my InDesign file is too the left, and the PDF to the right...

Below, the PDF is to the left... in both comparisons, artwork has vanished that was in the original PDF.

Thorzdad · Jun 21, 2007, 02:02 PM

Just taking a wild shot here...
Any chance the PDFs supplied by the advertisers are layered PDFs? Perhaps the lower layers (where the image is presumably located) aren't getting included when you generate the new PDF?

tpicco · Jun 22, 2007, 04:02 AM

ok... so if I am getting "layered" PDFs, how do I un-lay them? I have Adobe 6.0.2 Professional... Is it as simple as opening and re-saving them?

JonoMarshall · Jun 22, 2007, 05:05 AM

Does the same thing happen if you print to a postscript file from Indesign and then Distill the files to a uniform PDF format (what format are you using by the way)?

glypht · Jun 22, 2007, 07:03 AM

Some questions:

1) What version of InDesign are you using?
2) What version of Acrobat do you have?
3) Are there any spot colours in the PDFs you were supplied?

Thorzdad · Jun 22, 2007, 07:49 AM

Originally Posted by tpicco

ok... so if I am getting "layered" PDFs, how do I un-lay them? I have Adobe 6.0.2 Professional... Is it as simple as opening and re-saving them?

When you open the PDF in Acrobat, look to the left side of the window. You should see a line of tabs along the left edge. Click on the one marked "Layers"
If the PDF is layered, you should see them listed in the opened tab.
Under "Options", select "Flatten Layers"
Obviously, you'll have to re-save the PDF. I'd suggest you save it under a different name and test it in your workflow to make sure 1) flattening solved the problems and 2) re-saving didn't dork the colors or quality.

roller · Jun 22, 2007, 09:01 AM

Looks like you have received some good information so far. I stumble upon this link that discusses layered pdfs and how to merge or flatten the layers:

PDF Layers

tpicco · Jun 25, 2007, 06:49 PM

Some questions:

1) What version of InDesign are you using?
InDesign CS (3.0)
2) What version of Acrobat do you have?
Professional 6.0.2
3) Are there any spot colours in the PDFs you were supplied?
Nope

almaink · Jun 26, 2007, 03:28 PM

One thing to check is that they are not using OPI when making the PDF's. I see that a lot with PDF's made from QuarkXpress and Microsoft apps.