Best method to export a file for precise Adobe Illustrator compatibility?

**behzad** · 31 March 2022, 01:06 PM

Ernie, when I output to print at 300 dpi size as, I do not care if it flattens or not. If the file was for digital online use then RGB pdf without the X would be the one I go for.
Also from my years of experience with print and output from xara to illustrator, the CMYK colors will not be exact to the numbers in ILL. So what I do is now
export RGB from xara as pdf, take it into illustrator and readjust everything and save as illustrator file. I only do this for logos.

**ernie-f** · 31 March 2022, 02:10 PM

Originally Posted by behzad

Ernie, when I output to print at 300 dpi size as, I do not care if it flattens or not. If the file was for digital online use then RGB pdf without the X would be the one I go for.
Also from my years of experience with print and output from xara to illustrator, the CMYK colors will not be exact to the numbers in ILL. So what I do is now
export RGB from xara as pdf, take it into illustrator and readjust everything and save as illustrator file. I only do this for logos.

But again, this is the wrong way. Xara writes perfekt PDF/x1-a files for printing. There is no need to do it again in AI.
If you have a client with his own color for his bussines it is wrong to do it in RGB. The gamut of rgb is much higher then CMYK. A nearly perfect color match you can achieve only with
calibrated equipment and a regional print shop to adjust with him (the printer) the colors on the printing press.

The way, Xara-RGB-PDF to AI-RGB (correction) and then output to PDF-CMYK will produce errors. All black text, fills outlines and shadows as a transperancy will be print in all 4-colors.
So you have to correct the hole RGB-PDF in AI. Better is to set the hole document in AI in the right color range.
Or output from Xara as PDF/X1-a and set all black text, objects, etc. to overprint and write it with the correct color profile.

Or you write a PDF/X4, set all text and black objects in Xara in 100% K and oveprint it when necessary, logo-customer colors define as CMYK or spotcolor.
All Images you can leave as RGB – because PDF/X4 can output both in one PDF. Don't use a color profile for the output. Then from AI you choose the color profile your print shop recommend
to write the PDF.

If the PDF may go to an other publication agency for printing issues the best way is the PDF/X1. So you have the best control over the PDF if you check it in Acrobat.
And no suprises while transparancies or shadows look strange, then the things can be:
1. PDF/X4 allows RGB and the conversation to CMYK can do strange things in the RIP-Unit.
2. Adobe wrote that the use of PDF/X4 need to do perfect conversation (of all features X4 can handle) for offset printing needs an Adobe Print Engine as Raster Image Processor. Not all print shops have it.
3. Effekts with many layers can be a problem for the RIP.
4. In X1-a you profile your PDF with the right color profile and see in the softproof of acrobat how the conversation from rgb pictures will look in the print. If you leave them in X4 as RGB they can/will be outputed native as RGB.
5. and so on …