Stone Design Forums

I use PStill to combine multiple PDF files into a single PDF page.
We often receive PDF generated with Acrobat Professional and we've some problems with overprints.

Investigating deeper, we've discovered that these "guilty" PDF files have been generated in Acrobat with the checked option:

"Default overiprint is not zero" (or something like, I've the Italian version of the software)

If this option is used, when PStill combines these files the overprints are discarded.

Looking at Acrobat help, it seems that if this option is checked, Acrobat inserts the parametr 'Graphics state "OPM 1"' for each "set overprint" command. It seems that PStill discards this command.

Any suggestion ?
Thanks,

Marco.

Frank can answer this more definitively, but have you set in Output Options in Preferences:

"Take over overprinting"

and it's sub-switch: "overprint transparent"

I use PStill through the shell.
I own both PC and Mac version, the behaviour is the same.
The command I used is like:

....../pstill -a 6 -d 1000 -m Xspot -m Xoverprint -v -c -c -c -c -i -p -O -M forcepdflevel=14 -M pagecontrol=combining_script.sl -o output.pdf file1.pdf file2.pdf .......

The script looks like:

define pdf_page_setup(pagenum) {
if(pagenum == 2) {
setupPage(800.0,39.0,0.0,1.0,1.0,1); }
if(pagenum == 3) {
setupPage(8.503937007874015,70.8661417322835,0.0,1.0,1.0,1); }
if(pagenum == 4) {
setupPage(0.0,99.2125984251968,0.0,1.0,1.0,1); }
.....
}


I've done a test using Illustrator 11, exporting it directly in PDF or printing on Acrobat 7 printer. The problem is on the black elements. Generated PDF has both correct overprints.
When I use PStill to combine them together through a S-Lang script, black overprints have been lost.

If you need, I can send you a my test files.
Thanks so much,

Marco.