I made a boo-boo and accidentally unassigned all the pages in a complicated layout. I can look at the History to see which page was assigned where, but it is a pain going back and forth between History and Signature panes to do so. Is there a way I can print the History, or even export it to a file that I can open and print? My workaround was to take a screenshot of the History and print that out. Worked fine, just curious if there's a better way.

Just wondering what everyone does when it comes to contract color proofs - do you output a flat imposed proof, or single pages? I'm strictly talking contract color here, not impo "digital bluelines" that show pagination.

Here's the sitch:  In my old workflow, our color proofs came out imposed, so they looked just like the press sheet - marks, color bars, everything. Now that I've switched to Prinergy, I wanted to migrate us to "loose page" proofs - each page is a single page proof instead of imposed. This has several benefits in my view: it uses less paper (they come out ganged up and there is little waste), it is much faster, and if a press form has 8-up of the same page, I now only have to output 1 of them instead of the whole 8-up sheet. I still output an imposed "blueline" lo-res proof to fold down and show pagination.

After working all week getting Prinergy up and running and implementing this new scheme, one of the owners is complaining that he wants to see the whole sheet like before. We "discussed" it for a while. His concerns are that customers will forget to send all the proofs back and he doesn't want to fool with all the loose pages (he's actually taping them together into a press form now -- don't ask why). He also thinks that customers want to see the imposed sheet - I think it only confuses them and why should they care how the job is imposed anyway. If all the pages don't get returned, we simply re-output the missing pages -- easy peasy lemon squeezy. Besides, half our customers don't return the proofs as it is and we end up rerunning them anyway.

I managed to buy some time by asking him if we could try it my way for a while, but I wanted to see what others are doing in the meantime.

I have pretty much completed my transition from my old PS/M 8 to Prinergy. Installed all week and started running live jobs yesterday and today. Installation has been very smooth, thanks in part to the fact that the training I got in Rochester week before last was excellent.

I still have 3 more days of startup assistance next week, which I'll use to work out any kinks along the way. I find myself looking forward to going to work again!

So, I'm going to Rochester, NY next week (April 20-24) for Prinergy training and I was wondering if anyone from here would be there as well. Kind of a long shot, I know, but figured I'd ask!

This will paint a funny picture - my hotel room has free internet service, but I do not own (or have access to) a laptop so I'm going to lug my daughter's 10-year-old orange iMac into the room so I can surf in the evenings (believe it or not, I have 10.4.11 running on it!)

So, here I am trucking along and trying to wrap my brain around DW, and it's actually going okay. My latest problem is that let's say I draw a div and add some text to it. When I first start typing, the text is aligned at the top of the div. As soon as I start a new paragraph (by using a hard return {that's what she said}), the first line drops down a bit so it is no longer aligned with the top of the div.

As far as I can tell, I don't have any "space before" settings and changing margins and padding to zero doesn't help. It's not the end of the world, just annoying.

Gnubler - any ideas?

Is anyone using Printable's FP Links to generate pURL campaigns? It's been dropped in my lap and I'm trying to figure out how to get started.

First let me state that I learned how to use DW version 3 about 7 years ago and found it pretty simple. I made some simple websites and never had a real problem.

Now, I have upgraded to DWCS4 and find that I can't make a simple HTML page do what I want - namely, I can't figure out how to simply change the color and other attributes of text without getting involved in CSS. I know that CSS is the future, but right now I don't need the future, just a simple way to change the color of some text! I am having to resort to actually going into the code and editing it there, but don't want to do that if I really don't have to.

It is for an HTML email blast campaign, so from what I understand CSS isn't the best solution anyway.

Does anyone use FusionPro for variable data? We have it and I'm looking for some info on how others are using it. I think we may be doing things the hard way.Currently, if we have a variable job, we first make a PDF of the static data. Then, we open the PDF in Acrobat and use the FusionPro plugin to draw text boxes wherever variable data needs to go and format it there. No big deal, except when the customer changes something that affects the static data and I have to start from scratch with the variable stuff again. Up until now, we've only done mailing panels but there is a job on the horizon that is a wee bit more complex (putting the recipient's name in the body of the letter, etc.) I'd like to be able to format the variable text in InDesign (I know there's a plugin that came with FP), but I'm not sure what the heck I'm doing. The manual is a bit confusing to me, as well.

Check this out - this is a great little utility that will open your InDesign documents in the correct version - no more guesswork! I just tried it out and it works.

http://indesignsecrets.com/utility-opens-indd-files-in-the-correct-version-of-indesign-in-osx.php

ORIS Hotfolder Manager5 has suddenly decided to stop printing to my Epson 9800 (any hotfloders that are set to print to my Epson 10000 as "bluelines" still work.) I know very little about the internal workings of this nightmarish program, so any help is appreciated!

Here is the error I see in the log file:

-ORIS-E, An error occured while excecuting the following function:
-ORIS-E, Proof file 'C:\Active Hotfolders\PROOF EPSON Stylus Pro 9800\ADJUSTED four-color .eps'.
-ORIS-E, Proof of 'C:\Active Hotfolders\PROOF EPSON Stylus Pro 9800\ADJUSTED four-color .eps' failed.
-ORIS-E, Error detected by program: 'C:\DDS512\ORIS Hotfolder Manager\HFM_ANYTOPROOF.PL.BAT'.

Of course, the entire log file is much longer, but this was high;ighted in red so I guessed it is the important part.

Any clues? I'm in trouble here if I can't get it going.

Noticed something weird about InDesign today (occurs in CS2 and CS3):

Had a black box sitting over a 20% Cyan colored box. The black box had some white text that I wanted to have the cyan show through, so I set the black box to Multiply. When I checked separations and turned the K sep off, the area where it covers the blue box reads 36%C, but it should read 20%C since Multiply is essentially creating an overprint.

I finally tracked it down to the "Overprint Black Swatch" preference under Appearance of Black - uncheck it and it is fine. My solution was to create a new swatch of 100k and use that instead of the default Black swatch.

I just don't understand why setting the original box colored with Black to Multiply would make the cyan darker underneath. An overprint is an overprint, even if it is accomplished via Multiply.

P.S. - there were no Rich Blacks involved, nor any color management applied, nor any transparency other than Multiply of the black box.

Anybody using Kodak Sword Excel plates? If so, how are they for you?

Here's a link to my Craigslist ad with details:

http://baltimore.craigslist.org/bks/708372993.html

Anybody running Rampage with a Creo/Kodak platesetter?

I currently have a Lotem 400, with files sent from Brisque. We are looking to upgrade our workflow (not the platesetter) and with Rampage (and others, I imagine) we would need to send 1-bit tiffs to the Brisque, then from the Brisque to the Lotem. This doesn't thrill me because Brisque won't be supported much longer and if it blows up, I'm stuck (plus, I'd rather just dump it). Rampage cannot interface directly with the Lotem.

Just curious to see how others might be handling a similar scenario.

Has this happened to anyone else?

If text is styled with Small Caps in InDesign CS2 or CS3, sometimes it gets jumbled up upon output (either printing to postscript or exporting PDF). It doesn't always happen, and quitting and relaunching InD fixes it, but I've gotten burned once this week by something slipping through to press, and I just saw another instance today (customer caught that one).

Crap - guess I'll have to actually start looking at my work, now.

I've had Preps 5.2.2 for a while now, and haven't dabbled in SmartMarks becasue I already had a bunch of base templates that I use as a starting point to make new templates, and most of the marks needed are already in place.

Reading that other post about the rotated Flat ID text got me interested in using a SmartMark for the same purpose, but my issue is different:

I type in "Sig $sig Side $side SHEETWISE", just like in my static marks so that it will read "Sig 1 Side A SHEETWISE" on the plate. I am setting rotation to 90. When the mark is imported onto the template, the "$" symbol is replaced by "#", which is wrong. I can edit the mark once it is placed on the sheet and change the # back to $, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of using SmartMarks in the first place?

Perhaps I am doing something wrong?

Okay, I'll admit it: I'M LAZY!

Does anyone have any documentation that they send to clients citing how they prefer to receive files (PDF and native, preferably), and if so, are you willing to let me borrow the native files so I can modify them for my company's use? Obviously, I already know what they should say, but I'm looking to save some time in the typing department (not my strong suit) and also want to get a feel for what everyone else's looks like.

In the event you are not willing to share natives (selfish bastard!), I would still like to see your PDF and perhaps I can still glean something useful that way.

Found this on The Dark Side:

http://planetquark.com/2007/12/05/how-to-open-6-with-6-and-7-with-7-revisited/

I haven't tried it yet.

(This is for PS/M 8 users, but anyone with a Brisque can chime in, too because it does the same thing)

I recently upgraded my rip from PS/M 7 to 8.1. I rarely allow the RIP to automatically do my trapping - instead, I prefer to rip the job, then open it in PressTouch and make my trapping decisions and frame it there. Since the upgrade, whenever I open my Decisions to look at how it is going to trap the file, I get a bunch of colors in the Constraints tab that all say "Don't Frame" - anywhere from 1 color to a list of a dozen or more. Some of the colors in this list are just Registration, which is fine, but other times it lists colors that I do need to trap, so with every job I have to delete the list before I let it make the decisions. No big deal, except that on the few occasions where I actually want to just let it trap automatically (like when it is only LW in the job), it doesn't trap some color pairs that obviously need it.

I never had this happen in 7, so obviously there is something different here. As far as I can tell, all my rip settings are the same as before unless I'm missing something. All FAF settings are identical (I don't think it is an FAF setting issue anyway because I can rip the same file on PS/M 7, 8.1, and Brisque 4 and 7 does not protect these colors) I've experimented with all the RIP settings and haven't gotten anywhere.

So how do I get my RIP to not protect these colors?

I have a machine dedicated to running Classic applications. I was working on a Quark 4 ddocument, and Classic crashed while I was generating a PostScript file. Now, I can't get any Classic app to launch. Classic itself appears to launch and run fine, but when I try to relaunch Quark, the icon in the dock looks like it is launching but the app never opens. I also cannot get any other Classic app to launch.

Anybody seen this and have some ideas? I repaired permissions and restarted twice. I think I'll zap the ole PRAM next.