1.) Creating a PDF for Print Production (Mac):

The first step in creating a successful PDF is creating your postscript file (.ps). PDFs can be created also by creating an EPS of your file by selecting the 'save as' function available in many programs and either saving as an EPS or exporting as an EPS. None of the EPS methods are fool-proof, however and many times result in font-issues within the PDF.

When Acrobat is installed on your machine (Mac), by default an Adobe 'PSPrinter' becomes available in the Chooser. This option is available for those of us who may not have access to a Postscript Printer. You will need to select this PSPrinter in the chooser. When you select it, you'll notice a pulldown menu in your Chooser. Select Virtual Printer from this menu and close the Chooser window. For sake of time I'm only going to cover the Quark print options dialog boxes.

With your document open, select print. The Document tab should be at the forefront. Leave the print style as default. If your document has a bleed, enter the amount generally in inches ex.: .125" for 1/8" bleed. Turn off registration so that no printer marks appear on the pdf. Click the Setup tab. The printer description should be Acrobat Distiller. Set your document print size at 1" larger than the document itself. Example: if your document is 8.25" x 10.75", then set the print size at 9.25" x 11.75" and also select center. Change orientation accordingly for portrait or landscape. Select the Output tab. Print colors should be on Composite CMYK, Halftoning set to conventional, Resolution 1200, Frequency 100. If your product is to be printed on gloss, select Resolution 2400, Frequency 150. Under the Options tab, leave all at their defaults. If you click the Preview tab, you should be able to see your page orientation. If the blue line that represents your documents printable area falls beyond the white box, which represents your actual paper size in Distiller, you need to adjust your orientation (landscape/portrait), or maybe the page size is wrong.

Now that you've covered all the above steps, you're ready to print to file. Click the 'Printer' button at the bottom of the print dialog box. Make sure that the next dialog box that pops up says 'Printer: "Virtual Printer", then click 'Save'. On the next dialog box that pops up, select under Format: 'Postscript Job'. Be sure to select Binary, Level 2 only and under Font Inclusion: 'All'. Name your file, click Save, then click print.

2.) Job Settings in Acrobat Distiller

Adobe Acrobat Distiller is the best way of creating a PDF file that will provide you with great printability and cross-platform functionality. But an error in your "Job Settings" can easily make a good job go bad. CSI recommends using the Adobe supplied Press Optimized or in Acrobat 6 / Distiller 6, you can select the PDFx1a setting. To choose a a setting, open your Distiller program and select one from the "Job Options" menu.

If you use the Press Optimized option you must set your Job Settings. Click "Settings" in the menu bar of Distiller. Then click "Job Settings." Distiller will open a window that has five tabs: General, Compression, Fonts, Color, and Advanced. Under General, confirm that your compatability is Acrobat 4.0 and that ASCII is unchecked. Then confirm that the dpi setting is 2400. Next, click Compression and confirm all boxes are checked and the dpi settings (down the list) read: 300, 300, and 1200. These settings will keep high-resolution images intact without allowing excess file sizes. Now, click Fonts and check "Embed all fonts". Then make sure that your "When embedding fails..." setting reads "Warn and Continue." You may then leave your Color and Advanced settings at their defaults. Finally, click "Save As" and rename your Job Option to "Press Optimized(1)" (without the quotes) and click OK. You are now ready to make your hi-res PDFs!

Now that your Acrobat Distiller is set up with your new job options, you are ready to make a PDF. Simply drag and drop your PS file into the Distiller Window, or click "File" and "Open" to select a PS file from your hard drive. Either of these operations will set Distiller in motion on creating a PDF file. Note any errors or warnings regarding fonts in the status screen at the bottom of the Distiller window.

Once your PDF has been created, open it in Acrobat and make sure it was created to your liking. If not, check your original file and your Job Settings to confirm that there are no errors.

Thanks to Adobe.com, further assistance for creating pdf's can be found on their website at the following links.

www.adobe.com:80/products/postscript/pdfs/pdfforprint.pdf
www.adobe.com:80/products/extreme/pdfs/CreatingHighResPDF.pdf

The information provided in their ebooks (pdfs) covers both the Mac and PC platforms as well as almost all the major desktop/creative software used in the industry. The tutorial instructions availble at Adobe are useful for Acrobat 4, 5 and 6.

If you're interested in finding out more about PDF, some useful sites are:
www.planetpdf.com
www.pdfzone.com

A useful tool for aiding in the successful creation of PDF files, is the Creo Distiller Assistant. The Distiller Assistant is available free at www.prinergy.com. All you need to do is register with the site (free) in order to download their software. Included in the download is a readme file which explains where and how to install the Assistant.