Global Force Overprint of a custom Spot Colour

[BSPrint]

Hi All,
We use a custom Spot Colour "KEYLINE" (M: 100; Y: 30) to indicate perf lines and other printing marks.
We want this colour to show on our soft proofs, but not appear on our plates, nor knock out.
We have defined this colour in Ink Management as a Die Line, and set it to not print.
It does not show on plates from the spot colour queues, however it does knock out.
On the CMYK queues this spot is converted to process and appears on the plates. CMYK colour conversion is done using action list in Preflight.
Is there any way to have this colour ALWAYS be spot AND overprint, never appearing on the plates or interacting with any other ink.
We had this system in place on Apogee before moving to XMF about a year ago, with rushed installation/training.
Thanks
another antipodean

[Tracy]

I have never had an issue with Spot overprints in XMF
did you get it to work?

I think you can get XMF to recognize the specific "Die line" spot color
but not overprint it every time that would have to come from the file.
XMF will save various "Die Lines" in the Ink Pool
so your "Die Line" color can change, took me a bit to figure this out!

[pabney]

We use a Pitstop action loaded in the job preflight section to set any of our die line colors to overprint.

[Tracy]

I don't use the pitstop actions in XMF, Good info!
maybe that will work for BS Print

I'm a bit of a control freak with my files 

[BSPrint]

We use a Pitstop action loaded in the job preflight section to set any of our die line colors to overprint.

I hadn't considered that.
I guess I could also use an action to exclude the dieline from converting to CMYK - with a whole lot of research.
Don't suppose you have a copy of that script?
Cheers

[pabney]

Sure. All this does is ensure that any of the various die line names we use are set to overprint. We don't use XMF to convert our colors to cmyk.

[DCurry]

Not used XMF, but in its color library where you define how to treat the color are there options like Transparent or Dieline? Prinergy and Prinect let you define that and it informs the rip how to handle it. Classifying as dieline means it always overprints, never plates, and allows colors underneath to trap to each other. 

[BSPrint]

Sure. All this does is ensure that any of the various die line names we use are set to overprint. We don't use XMF to convert our colors to cmyk.

Thanks. Hopefully I can figure out the syntax to add our Keylines, we have years of history with this spot colour.

Not used XMF, but in its color library where you define how to treat the color are there options like Transparent or Dieline? Prinergy and Prinect let you define that and it informs the rip how to handle it. Classifying as dieline means it always overprints, never plates, and allows colors underneath to trap to each other.

You'd think, but sadly only the not plating part.
I see there is a default action in XMF "Dieline remap and overprint", but no documentation or description.

Converting to CMYK using an action, makes keeping KEYLINE spot (and overprint) difficult, however when we converted using colour setting, it was converting 100K black to 4 colour black when trapping over a (converted) spot colour.

[DigiCorn]

When I was working, I created a spot color called, "Dieline," (100M) and I would set it to overprint manually in ID or Illy. When RIPping in Rampage/Prinergy, I selected it also to overprint (when Rampage existed). When proofing in EFIColor/FieryXF I would choose it to print. When plating, I did not select it as a plate to print. Worked for me.

Not sure how this translates over to XMF.

[DCurry]

That works, too, just a lot of extra steps to remember every time which means opportunities for mistakes. For me, the advantage of defining special colors in the rip is that you only have to define the color in InDesign as a spot and be sure it is named correctly - nothing else matters. And configure your rip so it by default checks the custom library first when it is handling spot colors. The properties defined in the rip will override any settings you may have applied or not applied in the source file. 

I make sure in the rip I define all the possible ways a die color might be named - DIE, die, Die, Dieline, DIELINE, dieline, etc. You can also add variations for Fold, Perf, whatever you need. 
 

[Slappy]

XMF is supposed to do exactly that, we've always had our Dielines (and all the possible variations that people use) set to Overprint on the Plate but Knockout in the Proofs so they'll show up easily on Epsons. Lately though, they' haven't been honoring those settings. Gotta put a call in to Support, just haven't had a chance.

That Preflight Action is a good idea though, might employ that in the mean time.

[Tracy]

Hey that sound like a good feature overprint on plate and knockout on the proof!
I never knew it could do that!

[DigiCorn]

Hey that sound like a good feature overprint on plate and knockout on the proof!
I never knew it could do that!

Just keep in mind, Black should ALWAYS overprint. Unless you're sending to a 2-color press with a common blanket. Like a Heidelberg Quickmaster POS.

[madbugger]

Hey that sound like a good feature overprint on plate and knockout on the proof!
I never knew it could do that!

Just keep in mind, Black should ALWAYS overprint. Unless the printer is a flog and you want to piss him off.

Fixed it for you   

[DigiCorn]

First time I've ever seen that word; flog. I like it. Don't know what it means, but waiting to break it out in conversation to tell someone to flog off.