Just throwing this out there, as my intent my be a little foggy.
I know there are a million options to fix a single ad. Been doing this / that for way too long.
At the time, we were not looking to upgrade our workflow, just Plate Setter.
But were approached and presented with a package that will solve our problems, make us more efficient.
I expected it work as presented. They tell me is does work as presented.
It's results that count.

Time for a smoke.

QuoteCan you test a problem page by putting it together in InDesign and export a PDFX4 2008 PDF?

Ad file is an Illustrator EPS, placed in Quark.
I am going to try saving as .AI and see if it works. We could then control the In-house Ads.
Indesign is really not an option, as we have our fair share of errors from InDesign too.
But the RIP should be able to handle this - that's what we were "sold".
The XMF setup was supposed to streamline our operation, make us more efficient, saving us money.

I do thank everyone for their input.
It is fun to see outside feed back of how others handle things.

Is it Beer:30 yet?

My Harlequin 8.1 RIPs the same files without any problems.
Oh, and that Screen Pic is Ripped as Spot Colors, one of our many tests.

A rough guess is that 75%+ of Ads are from outside sources, sometimes from Professional Designers, others from well-meaning store owners trying to save a buck.
Our In-House stuff is produced in Illustrator, saved as EPS.
Ads are placed in Quark 8.5 Layouts.
We have tried:
Print to PS and Distill - best success, but still not good enough for XMF
Export as X/1 PDF Flattened
Export as X/3 PDF Flattened
Export as X/3 PDF Native Transparency

Attached is the same ad with PMS to Process - still something missing.

On-the-Fly Spot to Process conversion with transparency is an absolute must for us - period. And were told that XMF will have no problems - just click the button and re-render.

Biggest Pain in the Butt Project:
800 to 1200 "Ads"  - be it Illustrator eps, ai, PDFs, Tiffs - anything, are placed into Layouts to make 15 to 20 Catalogs - press runs are usually 15,000 to 20,000 per Catalog.
Turn around is tight - usually 4 days from Layout Approval to Delivery at Mail House.
There is not time to babysit every Ad, looking for missing objects, weird Trapping Lines, and Greek Type (we think we fixed that issue)

Our best success with XMF on this Project is to still make PS Files and Distill.
On other projects, turning Trapping Off has helped.
If we export PDFs, all kinds of errors in the XMF - usually only visible in Rendered Mode.
Screen Pic attached - this one was easy to find - other$ were not.

Tech Support has tried, but as of yet been unable to produce a workflow that can replace what our Harlequin did.

Since we like the Imposition part of XMF, was just looking for an efficient way to use the Harlequin to "feed" files to XMF.

I guess I am a little crazy.

For plating.
Want to use our Harlequin RIP to supply XMF with separated 1-Bit TIFFs, and use XMF just for Imposition and Plating.
We have way too many issues with XMF's separations as compared to our old Harlequin.

Anyone using a TIFF Bypass workflow?
Wondering if XMF can re-group pre-separated 1 Bit TIFFs?
The help menu seems to suggest that you have to re-link files to colors.

digging up old thread....

I had similar issue, seems to do with Overprint Options and Converting to CMYK in XMF.

For Grins n Giggles, can you turn the "Force Overprint" On, and see if it RIPs as expected?

I set up the same way, but no good.
I must have the "Force Overprint" also selected, and the job RIPs as expected.
We are converting from Spot to Process in the XMF, and that's where the issue arises.
I know, I know, it's not the best thing, but it's a must have.

Thanks for all the input!
I had typed a nice long reply, and attached files, but got an error for files being too large and did not know how to go back - lost everything I typed. LOL

When we looked at this system, the Motto was: "let the RIP do all the work" - that does not seem to be the case.
We will heed Earendil's warning, and start exporting PDFs already converted to CMYK.

Currently, they suggested having selecting "force overprint" and "force knockout of CMYK white object" in the Overprint Menu.
RIP times have getting very long.

As for supplied PDFs, we are usually 2 or 3 times removed from actual Customer / Designer, and going back is usually not an option. "The other Printer did not have a problem"
Placing PDFs back into Quark or Indesign is a possible option, though many projects are Catalogs with multiple versions, seems it would be very labor intensive - Pre-Flattening will have to be tried.

I do find it very disturbing that "issues" only appear on Plates - never the Proofs.

Again, I thank you all for listening to me bithc, and for all the suggestions.

Dying with XMF ......
Same issues where Proof is always good, yet plates have "mechanical" issues, and different PMS to CMYK conversions - it's getting silly now.
Rasterized PDF from XMF to Oris Color Tuner Web. (the 2 RIP system still confuses me)

My question is....
On or Off - "Use Creative Suite Blending" in the Overprint Menu?

Goal is to have a Proof that Mechanically Matches the Plates. Does not matter if proof is wrong or not, as long as the plates are the same.
Currently, proofs always come out as expected, and way too often for my liking, Plate have "issues" that usually going back to file, make PS file, Distilling, and Replacing fixes "issues".

Wonder if I am getting too old for this.

Just to keep things organized, all the files in one folder, with one back-up system.
Looks like it can't be done efficiently.

Just trying to Archive a single job back to it's "home folder" on the Server....
Select Job
Click Archive Selected Jobs

No option to Browse to location

Would like to save / archive individual jobs from XMF to our Main Server - where all the native files are - which get backed up via Retrospect.

Is it possible to Archive a Single Job to a Specific Network location?
Example:
Select job, Select Archive, Select Location: //Mac Files/Job Folders/Native Files and PDFs - and Save.

Even in a single "workflow" I found just too many options to get going, our training was poor at best, more focused on layout vs. getting jobs to RIP correctly.
We went through month$$$$$ of bad plates / print, to find that some font embedding option was not selected.
I don't know if it's all companies, but you would think that they would have a solid working setup when installing and build from there.
A good 25% of our problems was not understand exactly what we were getting, vs. what we were "sold".