Thanks for your response everybody, really glad to read that some of you are in the same situation as me. There are some good points that I can comfirm directly:

Quote from: david on September 18, 2014, 07:16:32 AMdid no one tell you that being in "Prepress" is in fact all of those duties plus:
Be the rececptionist   --> small shop, no reception
truck driver  --> yes, but our truck is a small scooter only, just enough to carry two A3-size boxes
folder operator  --> my boss doesn't like to spend money, so folding is done by hand, luckily it's not a lot
cutter operator  --> ditto
network specialist  --> still trying to gain more knowledge about this
scheduling guy  --> we are not too busy, so we don't have a schedule
CSR  --> the most hated part of my job 
food delivery  --> usually done by my boss and his wife
cut the grass  --> only cement around our shop, nothing left to cut
sweep the floors  --> mostly done by boss's wife
clean the bathroom  --> see above
make the coffee  --> no coffee drinkers in da house
fry up some bacon
make drinks  --> go to 7-11 and buy

too many to list actually.

Quote from: Possum on September 18, 2014, 07:59:12 AMYou forgot the most important one - be the one to take the blame for everything that goes wrong.
--> Yeah, this is the most important part of my job, too. 

But I need to mention again, that I really don't mind doing things aside of prepress, though some things are bothering, like doing CSR crap. But sitting in front of the computer the entire day would let me become rusty. 
Taken as a whole, there are worse jobs out there, and after all I'm paid for working and not for playing with the computer or whatever. 

Hello everybody!

Since our digital print shop is pretty small, my duties during working time aside from prepress are to feed the machines with paper and toner as well as to do the finishing of the product, like binding or cutting. Actually I think it's not a bad thing, because like this one doesn't need to sit the entire day in front of a computer screen and damage his eyes.

But I'm curious if anyone here on the board is in the same situation and needs to do things aside from prepress, like cutting or folding the paper or operate the printing presses or other bindery equipment, during working time.

 

And the reaction of anybody hacking our accounts would be like this guy's:

Best Scary Maze Game Reaction


Sorry, I'll be busy now... Uploading some pictures...

This is a freakin' transparency issue... Place the PDF without the transparent background box checked in ID and export to any kind of PDF that preserves transparency (1.4 or above), the black separates as four color. The one placed with transparent background separates as pure black only.

Exported to PDF 1.3 (flattened) and no matter if the transparent background box has been checked or not, it separates as 100K only. Same if you flatten the PDF before you place it into ID and export to 1.4 or higher (which doesn't make sense, I know. It's just for trying).

If anybody hacks into my account and really finds my naked pictures, this would surely be the last time that he has the motivation to hack into somebody else's account...

Some time ago I've changed my Google password and had to do a factory reset on my Android phone since it couldn't update anything related to Google anymore due to a lack of option to enter the new password into the phone.

Today I've been courageous and changed the password again, but this time a notification popped open on my phone asking me to enter the new password. Seems they have fixed this problem with a newer version of Android.

That being said, I'm looking forward to my new project. One of our clients told me that he's going to ask his friend, who is a web designer, to do the design for a large format print. Sounds like it's gonna be fun again...

Sometimes you cannot think as stupid as people do... These days I am thinking about get myself enrolled at a graphic designer school and listen to what kind of crap they teach the students there - in that case I might be able to understand the way they prep their files.

Some news from my lovely printer:

Friday evening the delivery guy called (!? - why does the prepress guy not call himself? WTF...) and asked for an AI-file. During that time I had finished work already and my coworker did not really know about this case either, so she just replied that we don't have a AI-file, only the PDF. Ok, the driver said, he'll tell the prepress man and he'll find a way to go. I learned about this call today in the morning.

Yesterday was holiday here, so I was guessing, that we might get the business cards today, coz mostly, if you give them the file in the evening you'll get the product the next day during lunch time... Not so this time, the delivery guy came again with other stuff, but the business cards are still not in sight. He asked again for an AI-file, or in case we don't have, maybe we could just leave the background picture completely away. I just told him to tell his prepress person to call me directly... 

Two hours later (luckily my client has looooots of time) his majesty, the prepress man, finally called me. Kept telling me that for printing they'll use CMYK only, and if there are more colors than CMYK in the file, he couldn't handle it, since it won't open properly in Illustrator (!!). So after some discussion I've asked him, how about if I'd send him a pure CMYK file, would that make him stop crying? Yes, that would be OK. (So why do you not convert it to CMYK yourself for Christ's sake?)

The new file just went there. As some of you have mentioned above already, it is really to do a color conversion by yourself directly. This is something I can definitely confirm now. You'll never know the skills of the person who receives your stuff. I really need to stop believing that other people might somehow know what they are doing...

I'm using a 15.5" Sony for almost 5 years now and no complaints. Had to set up Windows 7 several times new but that's not the computer's fault. Once his lifetime ends, I might end up with Sony again, maybe Asus or Acer. Been thinking about Lenovo before, but plenty of people have quality issues with them, so they are off my list.

Thanks for your response guys! I actually started to doubt myself already. And yes, I also think this printing company sucks. But they are the cheapest around here and that's what it's all about. Nobody's willing to pay for quality, it just needs to be cheap and cheap only. Oh ya, and sometimes it needs to be fast, too.

The 5%-black words came out nice, just those two 5%-Pantone 289C circles and the lighthouse didn't appear. That's what made me feel weird. They are set to overprint but that should actually not let them disappear or am I wrong?

Fortunately, my client doesn't care a lot about color, as long as blue won't turn into purple he'd be OK. But he won't accept that things disappear. Next time I'll definitely take the advice to convert the color myself.

Thanks again everybody and have a great weekend!

Hey guys!

I just ran into an issue with a business card. Yesterday a client came to our shop (we do digital printing) and ordered business cards. We have printed one box directly on our KM C7000 for him to take it right away since he was afraid he'll run out of business cards during the weekend and those cards came out just nice. He then ordered another five boxes for later next week, which we have outsourced to offset printing (one of those online printers that prints every file directly and unseen).

Now they just delivered the cards and I realized that the background picture on the back of the card, which is set up as a 5%-Pantone 289C, has not been printing. The original supplied PDF contains plenty of printer marks but no bleed and our printer would never accept a file like this, so I have placed it into InDesign and exported it as a PDF-X1. The file contains two spot colors, and one of those colors is causing this issue now. The 100%-areas of this color have been printed with no problem. I decided to leave the spot colors untouched and let them handle the color conversion since they are not able to print spot colors - all they know is CMYK.

The company said they'll print new business cards for us, so actually it's not a problem, but I'd like to know what might have caused this issue. Is my way wrong? Anything I should do better? I have pretty less experience with offset printing but the files I send them so far have all been printed with no issues.  But maybe you guys can give me some advice what to do better in the future. Here are my files:

Client supplied file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4vV6_zsh9xXbUJoMDBTcERjSms/edit?usp=sharing
My file which went to the printer: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4vV6_zsh9xXbmMxN1Z1Mk80dDQ/edit?usp=sharing

Best regards and thanks to all of you in advance,

Christian