Use Acrobat Professional's advanced printing features to produce color separations, add printing marks, and control how transparent and complex items are imaged.In our last article, we talked about how to use Acrobat's transparency features. In this article, we'll use Acrobat's advanced printing features to produce color separations, add printing marks, and control how transparent and complex items are imaged.
First things first: Download the PDF file you need for this lesson.
1. Choose File > Print. The Print window opens.
2. Choose a PostScript printer to which you would like to print this document. If you do not have a PostScript printer available, choose Adobe PDF as the Printer, as this uses a PostScript print driver and can be used for this lesson.
Acrobat is capable of printing to most output devices for general printing purposes. Because you are creating color separations, it is necessary to choose a PostScript printer for this portion of the lesson.
3. For Print Range select All.
4. For Page Handling (Windows) or Page Scaling (Mac OS), choose Fit to paper and choose Auto-Rotate and Center. Keep all the other settings unchanged.
5. Click the Advanced button. The Advanced Print Setup window opens. Note that there are four options along the left side of this window: Output, Marks and Bleeds, Transparency Flattening, and PostScript Options.
6. Confirm the Output tab is selected along the left side of the Advanced Print Setup window, and choose Separations from the Color drop-down menu.
7. Click the Ink Manager button. Scroll through the listed inks of the document and locate Pantone 300 C. Click the spot color icon to the left of the Pantone 300 C name. The check box changes into a CMYK color swatch, indicating that this color will be printed as a combination of CMYK color values.
For Pantone 300 C, a close approximation of the color is made by mixing cyan and black. Because you converted this color to a CMYK mixture, Acrobat will mix these two colors to simulate the dedicated ink that is used to produce spot colors. Because these two colors
are already used throughout this newsletter, it is more cost-effective to use them to represent a spot color, rather than adding an entirely new ink in addition to the CMYK colors that are being used.
Acrobat also lets you globally convert all spot colors to their CMYK equivalents by choosing the Convert All Spots to Process check box. Click OK to close the Ink Manager window.
8. Click OK to close the Ink Manager window, then choose the Marks and Bleeds option. Click the All Marks check box to turn on a variety of marks that are created outside the edges of the document. Keep the Advanced Print Setup window open.
Next Page: Flattening transparencies.
Flattening transparency
Determine the flattening settings for your PDF in the Advance section of the Print window.
1. In the Advanced Print Controls, click once on the Transparency Flattening option on the left side of the Advanced Print Controls window.
2. Acrobat displays the same options that you reviewed in the Flattener Preview window prior to printing. Move the Raster/Vector Balance slider to the center.
Note: If you had selected the Apply button in the Flattener Preview window, it is not necessary to make any additional changes.
3. Choose the Save As button at the top of the Advanced Print Setup window to save these flattening settings. When settings are saved, you can reuse them on future jobs, avoiding the repetition of
re-entering the settings you use for certain jobs or specific output devices.
4. In the Save Print Settings window, type "newsletter" and click OK.
The settings are now available from the Settings drop-down menu at the top of the Advanced Print Setup window.
5. Click OK to exit the Advance Print Setup window. Then click either the OK button to print this document or click Cancel if you prefer to not print at this time.
Next Page: Setting up color management.
Setting up color management
Using color management can help you to control color consistency throughout your workflow. Color management essentially assigns profiles, or characteristics, for different devices to your document so that you get more consistent results throughout the entire
production process—on screen when printing proofs, and on a printing press.
1. If you closed the newsletter PDF, reopen it.
2. Choose Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Acrobat > Preferences (Mac OS) and click the Color Management tab along the left side of the Preferences Window. In the Color Setup section, several presets are available to make color management less complicated.
3. From the Settings drop-down menu, choose U.S. Prepress Defaults. This selection allows Acrobat to display colors as they generally appear when printed using North American printing standards. By using a Settings selection, all the options in this window are changed.
4. Under Conversion Options, confirm Adobe (ACE) is selected for the Engine. The Adobe ACE is the same color management engine used by Adobe's other graphics software, so you can be confident that color management settings applied in Acrobat will mirror those applied in your other Adobe software.
5. Click OK to close the Preferences window.
6. Navigate to Page 1.
7. Use the Zoom-in tool to focus on the picture of the band.
8. Choose Advanced > Output Preview. The Output Preview window opens. In the Output Preview window choose U.S. Web Uncoated v2 from the Simulation Profile drop-down menu. Notice the subtle shift in colors when you choose a new output profile, as Acrobat attempts to represent how the document will appear when printed on this type of
printing device. Return to the default Simulation Profile and click the Close Window button.
The proof on your monitor is called a Soft proof. The reliability of the soft proof is highly dependent upon the quality of your monitor, your monitor profile and the ambient lighting conditions of your workstation.
Pages 499-506 excerpted from "Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Classroom in a Book" Copyright © 2005. Used with the permission of Pearson Education Inc. and Peachpit.
Document Management 
