CYMK export to PDF - need help

If I select Pantone Blue Process C color from Pantone Solid Coated gallery and export it as PDF/X (CMYK), it export OK, however, if I open that file with Adobe PDF reader colors are not looking the same as in Xara.

Is that normal?

What I am trying to do is to created a business card that would be printed on coated paper and it should use Blue Process C color from Pantone.


Can somebody tell me if im doing this right or what I should select so that I get these cards printed in this color. Also is PDF/X better exporting format or I should go with Adobe PDF?

(I already selected xara to do art in CMYK mode)

Menu: Window --> Show Printer Colours --> Simulate Print Colours (it will not be the same but near to pdf view)

It will never as Xara uses RGB colours in its display and when you export it the colour profile then gets change to CMYK. This means that certain colours will look washed out. Now you can use Pantone colours with the Pro version but what will happen to that colour is that it will be converted using the export PDF filter into CMYK. The easiest way to get the Pantone colour is to tell your printer every thing that is 50% grey (it could be any colour) gets the Pantone colour that you want. Have a read in the Help files this will give you a better understanding of the subject. One big point of using spot colours that it can be cheaper using 1 or 2 colours and if you are using Pantone colours then this spot colour must be named. Pantone produce booklets or cards with with all their colours printed on them so if you specify that colour it will print that colour exactly. My big advice to anyone who is sending something to print for the first time don't use an online site as a lot of them do not want to take time to get to know their customer and their wants, I would use a local print shop who you can talk to and if you have a CMYK desktop laser printer you will just about see what your biz card will look like.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zaoka

If I select Pantone Blue Process C color from Pantone Solid Coated gallery and export it as PDF/X (CMYK), it export OK, however, if I open that file with Adobe PDF reader colors are not looking the same as in Xara.

Is that normal?

What I am trying to do is to created a business card that would be printed on coated paper and it should use Blue Process C color from Pantone.

Can somebody tell me if im doing this right or what I should select so that I get these cards printed in this color. Also is PDF/X better exporting format or I should go with Adobe PDF?

(I already selected xara to do art in CMYK mode)

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If you need Pantone color in your design, you need to use Pantone in your design...

I don't know what Xara uses for color conversion if you want the Pantone color to output as CMYK versus a Pantone color (LAB or Pantone's CMYK color conversion numbers). But attached is what Pantone says it should be versus what it is if you choose Xara's color editor and select CMYK.

Mike

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zaoka

If I select Pantone Blue Process C color from Pantone Solid Coated gallery and export it as PDF/X (CMYK), it export OK, however, if I open that file with Adobe PDF reader colors are not looking the same as in Xara.

Is that normal?

What I am trying to do is to created a business card that would be printed on coated paper and it should use Blue Process C color from Pantone.


Can somebody tell me if im doing this right or what I should select so that I get these cards printed in this color. Also is PDF/X better exporting format or I should go with Adobe PDF?

(I already selected xara to do art in CMYK mode)

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As far as I know, if you just want to print in one single "Pantone Colour" on the card, then as Mike says, you will use that "Pantone Colour" in your design.

But I believe what you are really after is how to produce the correct PDF for it, surely you should just use "native" in your PDF settings, not PDF/X which I am sure will take the document into a CMYK position?

If you need to convert the "Pantone Colour" to CMYK, that's a totally different story, you will need to match the Pantone carefully to CMYK values.

George

In my experience if you are producing artwork that is to be printed as a spot colour (i.e you are expecting the print shop to use one colour, Process Blue), then you would use black, and if you want varying shades of process blue, then also varying shades of grey in the design . It would also help to put the words PANTONE PROCESS BLUE in large letters outside the crop marks, so they can't fail to get it right.

The only time you need to use the actual Pantone colour in the design is if the print shop will be printing it as a four colour process (CMYK). This is overkill if you only want one colour on the finished job. There's less chance of you actually getting it too, since the printer will have to make four passes of the press to get the final colour. This would probably be more expensive as well, since the former will get your cards done in one hit. If however you are using an online printer, many of them only offer a CMYK process. This is because they tend to put many jobs on one sheet then print one big batch and guillotine them up afterwards. Again in this case you will be less likely to get the actual colour you desire, because the printer is trying to get a good match for you and a dozen other customers.

This may not be the same everywhere, but it's most certainly the way the print shops I use work.

Yes that what I was saying. It could be any colour so long as you tell the printer and yes I would also put it on the PDF.

As long as you have a client that can be educated, you can use any of the primary CMYK colors--and I use to do so as a matter of course before one could use Pantone colors in a PDF. Files were sent to a service bureau as Postscript files. That was a bit of time, my monitor was a paper white monitor so who cared.

But, since being able to spec Pantone colors in a PDF (also a long time ago), a client seeing a digital proof as anything other than what they think they expect takes explanation. So why bother? It is only extra work to add info when it can hit the PDF automatically.

My 2-cents for the morning.

Mike