Before we moved to the Nexus PDF workflow (which I highly recommend), I created a workflow that rastered the OPPO file like it is going to an output device but then output to a PDF. The files were huge and the quality wasn't optimal because weird artifacts would show up from converting the raster to PDF but it was much superior to picking up the low-res file. Hope this helps.

I have recently taken over running the prepress department at my shop (we print cartons for pharmaceuticals). Of course the first thing I hear is that I need to find a way to cut costs. There is a practice here of putting a paper cover sheet on all of the plates going to press to help avoid scratches. The pressman then take the sheets off and throw them away. Getting them to recycle the sheets doesn't work because the tape gets stuck to odd places on the sheet and we just end up throwing them out anyway.

I have a hard time believing that most plants tape a blank cover sheet over their plates but it is so ingrained in the culture here that it is even written into some of our clients SOPs. This may seem like a frivolous question compared to most of the ones on this site but we are wasting a lot of money and I just wanted to find out if this is a standard practice.