exported pdf black colour is never 100% black

[herbiehysteria]

hi guys
i use xara for both commercial printing design such as flyers and posters, and also for large format design such as banners and signs.

every time i export to pdf, the exported pdf is fine except for the black areas, theyre not really 100% black but more of a really dark grey that can be passed off as black or more of an anthracite colour

one of my printers told me that it was the fact that the CMYK 100% black was NOT being exported as that, but i don't know how to go about ensuring the correct black (the real rich, dark 'jet black' black) is exported.

when exporting jpegs and pngs, the real black is used, its just pdfs where this nasty 'nearly black' is always exported and hence printed)

can anybody relate to this and maybe point me in the right diorection?
best regards

[gwpriester]

What do you mean by black areas?

CMYK colors are transparency colors, or at least they have some transparency which when printed over each other produces the effect of more colors.

If you have solid areas of black, and you are not overprinting fine type, you can create was is called a four color black.

Your printer can give you some guidelines for this but essentially you add a small amount of CM &Y to the K. 15% usually works pretty well and produces a richer and deeper black.

[herbiehysteria]

What do you mean by black areas?

CMYK colors are transparency colors, or at least they have some transparency which when printed over each other produces the effect of more colors.

If you have solid areas of black, and you are not overprinting fine type, you can create was is called a four color black.

Your printer can give you some guidelines for this but essentially you add a small amount of CM &Y to the K. 15% usually works pretty well and produces a richer and deeper black.

gary, i mean solid areas of black yes

it is the four colour black i am referring to that i need, can i change the cmyk percentages within xara?

thanks for the reply