How to color sep MS office programs?

Some clients send MS word, excel, powerpoint, and publisher programs that color separators find difficult to output. Is there a simple way to do this?

Export the file to pdf. That's what we do when clients provide layout in MS Office apps.

I agree with Ibler. After the image is exported to pdf, it can be opened in Photoshop at the required resolution and then converted to cmyk.

presstech wrote:

I agree with Ibler. After the image is exported to pdf, it can be opened in Photoshop at the required resolution and then converted to cmyk.

Try opening it on Illustartor to preserve the text specially the black one. Since it came from microsoft the black text is in RGB, you can change the color in K only. Let the illustrator define the printing when sending it to the RIP for CTP or CTF.

Cheers!
billy

Inconverting MS Office files to PDF the text becomes CMYK, how to avoid this?

Archer, I have been trying to avoid this for a long time. As what billy said, just open the file in illustrator and convert the black text to pure k. Luckily in .ai you can select objects with the same color making it easier to change the colors of the text.

But if you can find a solutin for this, please share!

You can get Enfocus PitStop to make automatic corrections in PDF.Instead of going back and forth to Illustrator or Photoshop.You might have problems with the pictures because they will convert to Raster or Vector.

my trick...

in MS Word. Select all black text. open the font color option and select MORE COLORS, you will see the color spectrum and the gray scale at the bottom. by default the big hexagon black at the lower right is selected. now, click/select the blackest one in the gray scale. That will make the RGB black to solid Black.

to prepare the MS file for output:

don't convert your file directly to PDF.

Print your file, and select in the printer option PRINT TO FILE.
you will get a .PRN format. convert this file into PS format by just replacing the extension to .ps. you now have a PS file. Distill is acrobat distiller and you now have a colorsep worthy file from msword.

but, as always, double check your file before running.

it works with us. let me now if it does on your end.

cheers!

I guess there's so many ways to do this whether directly saving it to PS or PDF.

If I'm not mistaken the PDF document will use our display profile (monitor icc profile) as its source space. So if one is a heavy user of MS Office for 4-color printing...then you might want to keep your monitors calibrated and gray balanced at all times.

After making the PostScript we would like to enable color management in Distiller by using PDF/X-3 job options. There we can select our destination color space (output profile)....preferably ISO. Once we have a PDF beware that some K elements, if not all, have been converted to full colors.

We can correct our 4-color text to black only, as well as convert our RGB photos to Fogra 39/ISO 12647-2 colors (manually or automated) in Acrobat, and/or any Acrobat plugins.

All these conversions are done in a couple of seconds when things are in auto mode.

Hi papaMON. I like your technique in MSWord on keeping the black text in the K channel. Will keep that in mind. Thanks.

you're welcome po. But I have to thank you more, for I have learned alot from reading your posts. I have a long way to go to learn all, if not the basics. Thanks

larrysison wrote:

If I'm not mistaken the PDF document will use our display profile (monitor icc profile) as its source space. So if one is a heavy user of MS Office for 4-color printing...then you might want to keep your monitors calibrated and gray balanced at all times.

If you don't like the colors you got after conversion.....please try the following.

I forgot to mention that the RGB file from Excel, MSWord and Powerpoint will use an Untagged RGB. The Untagged RGB does not say anything of itself. Leaving this Untagged the CMM in your PhotoShop may produce some unwanted colors during conversion.

Therefore after exporting a TIFF, JPEG, or Save As PDF or PS from any MS Office Application....we could color manage it by opening the Untagged RGB in PhotoShop and then "Assign Profile" our Monitor icc profile. Then we need to "Save As" after assigning the profile.

Now that the RGB file has a meaning the CMM now has the data it needs to make a proper conversion. Only then can we "Convert" the color-managed RGB file into our press CMYK profile.

convert to pdf, kaso mas maganda kung nakainstall acrobat pro, para may preferences tab, tapo s may option dun na convert to CMYK. Pag inopen mo yun sa illustrator, 100 percent K na black text nun, kay overprint na lang gagawin mo., edit>edit colors> taz overprint black para mas mabilis. check mo na lang ulit separation sa Acrobat PRO para sure.

options:

1. MS OFFICE 2007 (windows only), download saveasPDFandXPS plugin. It's free.
2. Acrobat 9 Pro, setup your preferences suitable for offset printing (PDF/X standards)
3. Use Acrobat Plug-in like Enfocus Pitstop
4. Reject doc files intended for offset printing and help/educate the customers.
5. MS Publisher, there is option for commercial printing, use it. Otherwise no. 1 or 2 will help.
6. Excel and Powerpoint, convert to PDF (using parameters for offset printing), use other applications to edit/optimize the resulting PDF (Illy, Indesign, PS).

papaMON wrote:

my trick...

in MS Word. Select all black text. open the font color option and select MORE COLORS, you will see the color spectrum and the gray scale at the bottom. by default the big hexagon black at the lower right is selected. now, click/select the blackest one in the gray scale. That will make the RGB black to solid Black.

to prepare the MS file for output:

don't convert your file directly to PDF.

Print your file, and select in the printer option PRINT TO FILE.
you will get a .PRN format. convert this file into PS format by just replacing the extension to .ps. you now have a PS file. Distill is acrobat distiller and you now have a colorsep worthy file from msword.

but, as always, double check your file before running.

it works with us. let me now if it does on your end.

cheers!

Papamon is right. I think this is the best way to do it.