[OS X TeX] Illustrator to printing shop via pdflatex

[Alan T Litchfield]

On 16/06/2009, at 11:15 PM, André Bellaïche wrote:

> Unfortunately, there is no gray level mode in Illustrator. You have  
> to choose between RGB and CMYK.

K = black and therefore you do not need a greyscale mode. Densities of  
black can be set from 0-100%. The concept of lineart and greyscale are  
related to artwork that have line screen rulings. This does not apply  
to vector based artwork.

>
> Moreover, when the author of the image has left checked the box  
> "Display all the blacks as intense black" (I don't know exactly the  
> English formulation, I have a French version), some CMY colors may  
> be added to the black.

If the file has been set up correctly then there will be no other  
colours added unless you have added them when converting from eps to  
pdf.

>
> For one reason or another (RGB mode, CMY colors added to a black  
> stroke, some profile added by epstopdf...), at the end, you get a  
> message from the printing shop : ``your pdf file contains colour  
> images''.

If your document is only supposed to contain black or shades of grey  
then the printshop can easily convert the whole thing. This is easily  
achieved in Acrobat Pro or whatever imposition program they are using.  
If they are unsure I would suggest reading the help.

>
> Does anybody knows the good procedures :
>
> - to get rid of the colour added in black strokes (in one only time) ;
> - to save an Illustrator file in order that it is considered as a  
> grey or black only file by epstopdf (or Distiller), and by all  
> applications wihich may have to deal with the output file?
>

I have CS4, but in Acrobat Pro select Advanced > Print Production >  
Convert Colors.

This link has information on how to set up the colors correctly in the  
Convert Colors dialog.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Acrobat/9.0/Professional/WS58a04a822e3e50102bd615109794195ff-7b9a.w.html

Cheers
Alan