RGB Blacks From PageMaker 6.5

[ratintrap]

Someone sent us an ad PDF this morning that was designed in PageMaker 6.5. I have seen this kind of thing before so I used the touchup object tool to open the reversed box that is in the ad in Illustrator. The color mode for the box was RGB when I checked it in Illustrator, the border of the ad was RGB also. These are just simple black boxes.

Has anyone seen this with PDFs that were distilled from PageMaker 6.5 files (probably on a PC)?  Is this because of some default setting in 6.5 or is something getting messed up when the file is distilled? I have seen instances where a grayscale TIFF gets converted to Index Color when the 6.5 file is distilled so I wouldn't be surprised if it was some glitch caused by 6.5.

I suppose that I will just have to fix these kind of things myself because I haven't had much luck in the past with getting the person who created the ad to look out for stuff like this.

-Rat

[tuff_gong]

They might be using "Auto" instead of black.

[Joe]

Sounds like they are using the wrong Distiller job options.

[ratintrap]

They might be using "Auto" instead of black.

Aha.

Sounds like they are using the wrong Distiller job options.

If that is the problem, I doubt that I will be able to get them to change anything. The person who sent it is a county employee who does the county's PR. They are probably kind of flying by the seat of their pants with the ad design. I haven't had much luck in the past with getting those type of people to change anything. The standard line I get is that "no other paper had any trouble with it," that may be because the other papers have Pit Stop or something similar that allows them to identify and fix this type of thing more easily.

I have ways of fixing this, they are just not very convenient.

-Rat

[The Stevinator]

what tuff and joe said...