trapping pdfs in Acrobat 7

[andyfest]

I know...I know...Acrobat 7 is old and I have Acrobat 9, but I still prefer 7 for speed and simplicity. My question - I read Joe's explanation of trapping within Acrobat, but I can't seem to get it to work. I can trap a pdf using InDesign, but I would like to trap within Acrobat itself and possibly set up a batch process to do this. At present we have one client that sends 50 - 200 pdfs at a time. We are using Nexus 9.1 to batch trap, but if there is transparency used it slows the process to a crawl. Can someone help me get the settings right in Acrobat 7 to trap a pdf properly? Thanks in advance!

[Joe]

Assign the trap profile in Acrobat then you need to batch print them as PS files and then distill them. You could set up a watched folder for that but remember, if they contain transparency they will be flattened and that can be a crap shoot. I think you would be better off letting Nexus trap them. When we were using Nexus we found it was better to run PDF's with transparency through the Import module and let it flatten there then go into a raster workflow where it did the trapping. We had a lot of trouble trying to just go straight into a raster workflow. I never used Nexus 9 so that might be different that it was in 8.x.

[andyfest]

Thanks Joe. We were looking for a work-around that would avoid Nexus trapping. What we have found over the years is that pdfs with transparency would import ok, but we were trying to trap using the vector side. The resulting Artpro files would sometimes have thousands of supplementary tifs. Import times could be very lengthy as well. v9 does not seem to do anything differently than previous versions either. Most of our forms are made up of 75 - 224 positions of 6 col pdfs, most using transparency. It's all done seasonally for one client and so far we have muddled thru using Nexus import/trap and imposition using cf2's, but I'm always looking for an easier/faster way of doing things. I'll check out the raster side of things for trapping - thanks for your help. I've read a lot of your posts on the prepressure (b4print) and print planet forums over the years.