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What you describe are all fixable. PDFs "dropping" colors is a printer
driver problem, the PDF was created with either the wrong printer or the
right printer and wrong PPD, the fuzzy images thing is an image creation
problem or a resampling issue in Acrobat, which you can address through
setup, bullets disappearing is probably a font installation issue, an
embedding issue, or a printer driver issue with PDF creation, all of which
can be addressed through setup, font licensing is a template and font
purchasing issue, perhaps a font installation issue, again, all part of
setting up your workflow . . . and the fact that this is seen from place to
place does not point to a PDF problem but an issue with people setting up
their computers, buying and installing the fonts they want (if you are
authoring in an esoteric font, then it should be from a good foundry and all
authors should have a purchased copy of the font) , and understanding
operating system and printer driver differences . . ..
"An immediate system meltdown"??? "IT experts," been through the "Adobe
forum mill"? What product are you authoring in and what version of Acrobat
and Distiller are you using? Any special fonts?
This is really not rocket science, nor Microsoft's fault, nor Adobe's fault.
As for IT experts, they usually know nothing about Acrobat and PDF, let
alone printers and PostScript. Really, this stuff does make sense, it is
logical, even in Windows. The only trick to Windows is installing for the
particular version of the Windows Operating System that you are using, as
they are all different.
Fly me out and pay for my time, I'll get you running in any and all versions
of Windows (after 95 for Acrobat 5).
Cheers and no malice intended.
Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ed -dot- Hawco -at- acecomm -dot- com [SMTP:Ed -dot- Hawco -at- acecomm -dot- com]
> > > unfortunately it can require a lot of knowledge and research to get
> > > what you're looking for.
> >
> > Actually, no it doesn't.
>
> Sometimes it does. I once worked on a team with six writers, all with
> exactly the same operating systems, Frame, and Acrobat versions. Yet,
> some people's PDFs dropped colors, other's had fuzzy images, etc.
> Sometimes
> the PDF would crap out because of a font licensing issue, when the person
> at the next desk could PDF the same document without a problem. Sometimes
> everything would be fine except the bullets would disappear from bullet
> lists.
>
> I've seen this in several shops. You have to start getting into font and
> printer driver esoterica, which is not something that we're all fully
> versed ion (and the information in the Adobe forums is not always
> comprehensible, or sometimes just plain doesn't work.)
>
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