> At 10:54 AM -0700 8/23/99, Rich Sprague wrote:
>>The common thread in all this is that color or grayscale TIFFs failed in the
>>resulting PDF file. Using PitStop, I would get a message "no error" and at
>>that point my system would simply barf and shut down.
>
> Do you know in all cases if color conversion was set to "unchanged" in the
> Distiller Advanced Job Options? I can understand if you don't feel like
> responding if you feel that you have already spent too much time on this.

Thanks, Bob. I was simply using the default Press settings in Acrobat 4.

>>Then I would open the PDF again, and use QBox to check the image. It shows
>>Form XObject. I know only that this is a highly technical term, but in doing
>>a search on Adobe's basic web site, nothing shows up. Or, if it's there, its
>>buried so deep that I don't have time to sift through hundreds of docs to
>>find it.
>
> The short version is that a Forms XObject is the PDF equivalent of an
> embedded EPS (text, graphics, and/or images), but naturally in PDF
> encoding, color spaces, compression, etc.

Well, finally, a simple, concise explanation.

My next question/s, is why does it come up in Distiller 4 and not 3.02? And
most importantly, since one can't pre-flight PDFs with this problem, nor can
images be selected and edited, when is this problem between OPI and
Distiller 4 going to be solved?

The average Joe Schmoe isn't going to have the time, patience or knowledge
to deal with this. There's no point in having PitStop if you can't
pre-flight the file, and IMHO it's a big risk to send off a PDF when it
hasn't been pre-flighted or one can't verify it has been prepared/is working
correctly.

I think this problem needs to be fixed, and it should be a *high* priority.

OTHERWISE, AND UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THIS FORM XOBJECT BUSINESS IS RESOLVED,
I'M GOING TO DISTILL WITH 3.02 (ON MY MAC), AND ADVISE MY CLIENTS THAT
SHOULD THEY DO THE SAME.

FWIW, Distiller 3.02 seems to make PDFs in about half the time, and they
open a lot more quickly, too.

OF COURSE, IF PEOPLE USE DISTILLER 3.02 THEY WON'T BE ABLE TO EMBED AND
SUBSET THE HELVETICA AND TIMES ROMAN FONTS. BUT I GUESS ADOBE IN ITS
INFINITE WISDOM (AND DESIRE TO NEARLY DOUBLE ITS EARNINGS FOR IT'S
SHAREHOLDERS IN 1999) FELT THAT WE WOULDN'T CARE.

http://www.businesswire.com/webbox/bw.081899/192300337.htm

One of the problems that I have with this posture, is that's it's clear to
me that the reason you couldn't embed/subset the Base 14 fonts with
Distiller 3.x was strictly a licensing (money) issue. But I own Helvetica
and Times Roman, and am not counting on the *free* fonts in the Acrobat
resource folder to create my original document.

So why did Adobe tell *me* I couldn't embed the fonts? Now, with the same
fonts as I always have had, I can, but I have to dance on the coals
regarding the Form XObjects bug.

It's a wonder why I'm still in this business, and not selling used cars
somewhere.

r|i|c|h

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