I do not have the option to print separations from Acrobat Pro 11 on OSX Yosemite. I have installed the PPDs and they work in Illustrator and InDesign but do not work in Acrobat.
First, I am a designer at a screen printing shop and have been printing separations on a daily basis for 3 years. I understand how it works. I was working on a PC with CS 5.5. Typical workflow was to design in Illustrator, Print to PDF, open the PDF in Acrobat, save as EPS. EPS was the preferred method since I print the transparencies from Illustrator, and since Illustrator can only open one page of a PDF at a time, I saved the PDF as EPS so that ever spot color got it’s own EPS file. From there, I created a new AI file, put all EPS files on different art boards and printed.
Now I am on a Mac with Yosemite and CC 2014. I know the PDF workflow changed in Snow Leopard. You now have to print to a PostScript file and Distill, which then gives me the PDF i can open w Acrobat and save to EPS as usual.
But, I decided to really dig into Acrobat 11 since it has all the Ink Manager and Preflight features. My preferred workflow would be creation in AI, save a PDF, then use all of Acrobats features for the final check and separations. The Acrobat manual says on page 316:
“Print separations
1. Choose File > Print, and choose a printer.
2. Choose an option from the Comments and Forms menu.
3. Choose print range and page handling options.
4. Click Advanced.
5. If you created a custom printer settings file with the appropriate separation settings, choose it from the Settings menu at the top of the
Advanced Print Setup dialog box.
6. Select Output on the left, and choose an option from the Color menu:
Choose Separations if the PPD doesn’t support in-RIP separations.
…….
12. Click PostScript Options on the left, and select settings as needed. Click OK to close the dialog box, and then click OK again to print the separations.”
The only option I have in the print dialog is my desktop printer.
I have installed the PPDs, which brings me to another problem.
On this forum
https://forums.adobe.com/message/6735474#6735474
the gives the link
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=141
which is the adobe.sit.hqx file that contains 5 files with no file extension. Per the “Read Me” instructions, I have placed the “Acrobat Distiller (no file extension)” file in the
Library/Printers: PPDs: Contents: Resources: folder.
It works with Illustrator, and is not really and issue.
-The file is a 17KB file with no extension that was last modified on 9/9/2001.
Following another page
http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/multi/save-as-pdf-options-not.html#main_InstallAcroPPD
it give the link
which is the ADPDF9.PPD file, a 29 KB PPD file last modified on 12/8/2014.
Just to test it out, I placed both files in the
Library/Printers: PPDs: Contents: Resources: folder. Both are selectable from Illustrator when printing a PostScript file and both seem to work. I see no real difference between them.
I also created the PPDs file in the Presets folder of InDesign and can get separations from there as well.
But, I do not have the PostScript or any other print option from the Acrobat print dialog except for my desktop printer.
SO,
1) Is there somewhere else I need to place the PPDs for Acrobat to see it? The manual states I should be able to print the separations from the Print Dialog but its not available.
2) What is the difference between the “Acrobat Distiller” file and the “ADPDF9.PPD” files? Different size, different dates, but no obvious difference in output.
3) I sometimes print halftone jobs through AccuRip. I have gotten pretty good at manual spot color transparency gradients within illustrator, where I create complex gradients using only a spot color and a gradient with 100% transparency on one end and 0% on the other. But if I have many colors in it, I have to print separations through PotsScript and then Distill it, which flattens all transparency on the separated file. The result is a separation with a placed image gradient with a clipping mask instead of a true vector gradient. I know it has to be flattened when it’s ripped anyway, but I would like for it to ONLY get flattened as it passed through the rip on its way to the transparency, and not during the Distiller separation which then is placed back in AI for printing. Is there any way to do this on a Mac which MUST be printed to PostScript and Distilled?
Thanks