cpdf, preflight etc. need resources.

Lo folks,

A friend of mine asked me to design a cd leaflet\cover\inlay etc. for him. Now I am used to creating something in PS or indd with the correct bleeds, res and color mode.

The printer he’s using uses certified pdf. I have never worked with this before. I checked out http://certifiedpdf.net/home.php for now.

I need help regarding what questions I should ask the printer. So far I’ve understood that I need to figure out what profile they are using. I will be using Adobe Distiller to convert to cpdf, is this the way to go or can I use something like ‘define preset’ straight out of InDesign itself?

This is going to be one helluva adventure.

Sorry i’ve been in the print industry for over 5 years and never heard of cpdf.

I don’t understand why printers have to over complicate things. Creating a print ready pdf isn’t that difficult.

As far as i see this looks like it could get very messy with different people submitting different specifications.

Is this new? Let me know how it goes, i may be seeing this in the future.

I read through their site and it turns out they can convert to cpdf’s and do the preflight.

Basically it’s an industry standard for enterprise printers and the advantage appears to be present in the fact that pre flight changes are logged. So if you are sending the file around, everything is nice and tidy.

I work for a printing company and every company has different standards that would like the files to be prepared. Most likely the best way to set up a file for printing is use a page layout program like InDesign or QuarkXpress. Then from there you can export the files as PDF files, there should be options in that printing window for you to be able to export it out as a cPDF according to that companies standards, some companies like our company use XPDF printing standards, also. That is another form of a High rez printer ready file. We use the XPDF format.

Let me know if you have any questions on these file formats.

I think the CPDF is something you might need to buy and integrate it into the Adobe Program of your choice. Why the company wants it’s clients to buy proprietary software to fit their need, don’t see that a great thing to do to your clients.

So basically, I found the artwork specs on their websites and the templates.

The problem I am facing is that the templates are in pdf, I’ll be using indd and I’m having a hard time setting up a correct canvas to work with. It appears that when I import the multiple page pdf, the margins/bleeds/cutlines are a fraction of a mm off on each page. Is that really so or is it indd playing visual tricks on me?

The ruler doesn’t play visual tricks, that’s for sure.

CPDF is just to ensure that nothing is changed after the preflight, but the printer you’re using should also have their own PDF profile that you can load in Indesign.

Regarding the margins – I had a similar problem when I placed a PDF template in Indesign, but I had the option of also using a jpg template which didn’t show the margins/guides as being off. As long as your rulers and guides are in the correct spot your document should be fine.

Yeah I setup my own grid that is fine.

Does anyone here have experience designing cd booklets? The problem I am encountering is that the lyrics are wrapping where they shouldn’t wrap. I’m using 10pt type. Could I drop down to 8pt type?

I’m using a 2 column set up for a 20 page booklets. The lyrics are long so using a single column setup is excluded due to finances on the clients side.

God, if I need to change the type, I’ll have to redo the whole friggin grid. Grr…