Top Customer Issues Unveiled and Addressed - Commercial Printing

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This blog entry is geared towards addressing two of the top problems customers have faced when using Publisher for creating commercially printed documents. The hope here is that if you’ve faced a similar situation before, this will be useful. We'll be mining the Publisher forum for more issues in the future and will bring you posts like this on a semi-irregular schedule.

Issue 1 – Printing from Publisher to Adobe Distiller.

Solution – Knowledge Base article KB826360 has detailed information on how to configure Acrobat Distiller so that you can use it with Microsoft Office Publisher 2007 and with Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 to produce PrePress-ready Portable Document Format (PDF) files from Publisher 2007 and Publisher 2003 publications. If you follow the steps that are listed in this article, you will avoid the three most common PostScript errors that are encountered when you use Adobe Acrobat Distiller with Publisher 2007 and with Publisher 2003.

To set up Adobe Acrobat Distiller to work with Publisher 2007 and with Publisher 2003, you must do the following two things: 

  • Set up the Adobe PDF printer driver to work correctly with Publisher 2007 and with Publisher 2003. 
  • Create a Job Options (.joboptions) file for the Adobe Acrobat Distiller program.

How to Set Up the Adobe PDF Printer Driver to Work with Publisher 2007 and with Publisher 2003

  1. Click Start, and then click Printers and Faxes.
  2. Right-click the Adobe PDF icon, and then click Properties.
  3. Click the Device Settings tab.
  4. Change the Convert Gray Graphics to PostScript Gray setting to No.
  5. Change the Convert Gray Text to PostScript Gray setting to No.
  6. Click the General tab.
  7. Click Printing Preferences.
  8. Click the Adobe PDF Settings tab.
  9. Click to clear the Rely on system fonts only; do not use document fonts check box.
  10. Click the Layout tab.
  11. Click Advanced.
  12. Change the TrueType Font setting to Download as softfont.
  13. Click OK three times to close the Adobe PDF Properties dialog box.

How to Create a Job Options File for the Adobe Acrobat Distiller Program

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, and then click Adobe Distiller 8.

2. In the Default Settings box, click to select Press Quality.

3. On the Settings menu, click Edit Adobe PDF Settings.

4. Click the Fonts tab.

5. In the When embedding fails box, click to select Warn and Continue.

6. Click Save As.

7. In the Save Adobe PDF Settings As dialog box, type a name for the new .joboptions file, and then click Save.

8. Click OK.

How to Use Publisher 2007 and Publisher 2003 with Distiller to Create a PDF

After you set Adobe Acrobat Distiller to work with Publisher 2007 and with Publisher 2003 and create a Job Options (.joboptions) file for the Adobe Acrobat Distiller program, you can use Publisher 2007 and Publisher 2003 with Adobe Acrobat Distiller to create PDF files.

1. Open a Publisher 2007 or Publisher 2003 publication that you want to convert to a PDF file.

2. On the Tools menu, point to Commercial Printing Tools, and then click Color Printing.

3. If the Publisher 2007 or Publisher 2003 publication is to be printed as spot color, make sure that those spot colors are defined.

4. After you have verified the settings in the Color Printing dialog box, click OK.

5. On the File menu, click Page Setup.

6. Click Advanced, and then click to select the layout type that you prefer. (Note the page size settings.)

7. Click OK twice.

8. Click File, and then Print Setup.

9. In the Printer Name box, click to select Adobe PDF, and then click OK.

10. Make sure that the page size settings are still correct. If the job is to be a booklet or a multi-up job, you can use the controls in this dialog box to set up page imposition.

11. When the page setup settings are correct, click OK.

12. On the File menu, click Print.

13. Click to select the Print to File check box.

14. Click Advanced Print Settings.

15. In the Output box, click Composite CMYK, Separations, or Composite Grayscale (as appropriate.)

16. Click the Page Settings tab, and then click the printer’s marks that you want Publisher 2007 or Publisher 2003 to print.

17. Click OK.

18. When prompted, click a folder where you want to save your file, type a file name for your PostScript file, and then save this file.

19. Start Adobe Acrobat Distiller.

20. On the File menu, click Open.

21. In the Open dialog box, locate the PostScript file that you created in step 6, and then click Open.

 

Issue 2 – Trap lines do not appear when printing (or previewing) a publication as Color Separations.

Solution - This problem may occur if the Pubtrap.dll file is not registered correctly. In order to correctly register pubtrap.dll, follow these steps:

Note These steps use the default location for the Publisher 2003/2007 program. If you have installed Publisher 2003/2007 to a different location, substitute the actual path for the path that is used in these steps. The Pubtrap.dll file will always be in the same folder as the Mspub.exe file.

· Quit Publisher 2003/2007 if it is running.

· Click Start, and then click Run.

· In the Run dialog box, type c:\program files\Microsoft office\office11(or 12)\pubtrap.dll, and then click OK.

· When you receive the following message, click Cancel:

You are trying to open a file of type ‘Application Extension’ (.dll)
These files are used by the operating system and by various programs. Editing or modifying them could damage your system.
If you still want to open the file, click Open With, otherwise, click Cancel.

· Start Publisher 2003/2007.

 

Nupur Agarwal
Software Design Engineer in Test, Microsoft Office Publisher

About the blog contributor: Nupur has been working for Microsoft for the past 4 years as a Software Design Engineer in Test. In addition to other areas of expertise, she has experience in Internationalization of Office Products with the emphasis on Complex scripts. She is currently working with the Publisher and Word teams.