Quark - Print to PDF

[sstaubin01]

I am creating graphics in Photoshop, converting to .tiff and importing them to Quark for design layout. In Quark, the graphics appears in poor quality. This is suspose to happen as Quark only provides a scratch pad type display. I expected the quark files to display at full quality when I Print to PDF (File > Print > Printer: Acrobat PDFWriter), but they don't. Is this normal? Is there a way to get full quality in the .pdf file?

[Bill Posters]

It sounds like you have to alter your 'compression' settings for the print to pdf output. (page setup)

You may have it set to downsample images to 72dpi (i think this is the default setting)

Simply uncheck that option and it should embed the full resolution image into the PDF.

And yes, you're right about the low-res image within Quark. It uses these as it enables the user to push and pull the content around without having to store undos containg large image files.

If you want you can increase the quality of the display by making doubling the dimension while halving the resolution (simply enlarge without resampling)
Bring it back into Quark and reduce it to its original size (50%) and the display will be smoother.
Of course you can make the image even larger (400% resize/25% display size) and the display will supposedly get better and better.

Alternatively, you can get the Enhance Preview XT-SE extension for Quark (sold by Gluon to KGA.)
This enables you to create a cache of higher resolution previews that only show when that item is selected.
All other times it uses the standard 72dpi composition images, so you still get the better performance.

[philm]

Originally posted by sstaubin01
.......I Print to PDF (File > Print > Printer: Acrobat PDFWriter), but they don't. Is this normal?

I never do it this way because of that reason. If you have the adobe acrobat package the best solution is to print to a file, then use Acrobat Distiller, the results wil be much better. This has been acknowledged by Quark and Adobe as the best way to do it. Straight from quark is for a quick and dirty preview.

[sstaubin01]

Thanks Bill. I'll try your suggestions. I find InDesign much better in this area, but nobody uses it, at least for now.

Philm: When you say 'print to a file' do you mean save the Quark document (.qxd) the open it in distiller. I used the option Print > File > Printer: Acrobat Distiller but the file came out black and white. Can you give me more detail on how to do this process. Thanks.

[bbolte]

no, he is referring to making a postscript file (usually with the extension of .ps) and then using Adobe Distiller to convert to a pdf. You can also use an eps to accomplish the same thing but I think a .ps file is better. I generally have found that the pdf are of better quality and smaller file size. And he is correct that it is the approved Adobe way of generating pdfs. I used it this way in a publishing environment (newspaper), for advertisement development.

[Jeremy W.]

Yup, print to Acrobat Distiller, but you will still need to specify your output settings just like you were printing.

Thus, using 36DPI graphix (default) may well be your problem. Balance quality and file size and you should be fine

(we do this all the time here for our magazines )

[sstaubin01]

Jeremy: Who do you work for in Toronto? I'm from Oshawa. Currently looking for quotes for scanning 17 20 X 20 inch watercolor original paintings for use as professional unnumbered prints, graphics in a book and graphics for a web site. Mabye you can help?

[Jeremy W.]

You're going to like this I'm lead developer here: www.tacf.org

As far as scanning and printing... Email me and I'll see if our printing company can help you out, they print our magazine, brochures, everything and we have a great relationship with them (considering we send them .5M in business every year we should too ).

[qamar]

I agree with the others that its best to create the pdfs from the postscript files but if you like the ease of creating pdfs from quark try this.

First open up distiller and choose your settings. Screen, Print or Press. Press is for higher quality.

Now when you create your pdfs in quark the settings will be the one you chose before you closed down distiller.


qamar