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You have probably heard all of the hype about the Portable Document Format (PDF) being the ultimate prepress solution for professional publishing. Maybe you have even contributed some of it; we have. Thats why we were particularly interested when Corel announced its intention to include in DRAW 9 a Publish to PDF function. We received this information as half-skeptic and half-fan, and we adopted that same posture for this chapter. At least we tried to; however, we found ourselves getting bowled over by this terrific new functionality. According to the PDF buzz, in the very near future service bureaus wont need any program but Acrobat, since all artwork will be converted to PDF for output. Thats a nice thought, but anyone who is familiar with desktop publishing or service bureaus knows that you need more than an automated print button to achieve success in the prepress world. PDF will not replace knowledge and experience, because the minute something goes wrongand it always doesthat print button is not going to help. With that in mind, there are a lot of advantages to PDF, and if you havent already, you will want to consider adding it to your box of tools. It is likely to become a big part of service bureau and other cross-platform workflows in the coming years. Here are some of PDFs strengths:
And now that Corel has included an extremely robust PDF tool, you wont have to shell out a couple of C-notes to Adobe Corp. to take advantage of all of this. Not Your Fathers PDF ToolIf you experimented with DRAW 8s Export to PDF feature, you may well be thinking once burned, twice shy. That PDF export filter washow shall we sayawful! If your document contained text or complex objects, you never really knew what you were going to get. Export to PDF was just like using the PDF Writer of Acrobatit did barely more than take a screen shot, and it had no clue what embedded files were all about. But the Publish to PDF engine in 9 is different. It is not a rewrite of the DRAW 8 filter, but a completely new engine built by Corel for Corel from the ground up. Corel knows that it needs to fight down a reputation, just or unjust, for being less reliable at the service bureau than Adobe and Quark products. Publish to PDF rings a very loud bell for that cause: it is fast, accurate, and from all indications, bug-free from the start. OK, It Works. But Why Should I Use It?Although PCs are making headway in the Macintosh-dominated desktop publishing arena, the fact is most service bureaus, and many designers, are still predominantly Mac-based. Those who have made serious investments into equipment and personnel training arent about to abandon a system that is working just because some of their customers bring them PC files. More likely, forward-thinking service bureaus will add a PC or two to their network and buy some Windows softwaremaybe even CorelDRAWbut they still wont have the years of experience behind these products that their Mac-based customers rely on.
Thats where PDF helps you. It is entirely cross-platform across Windows, Macintosh, and Unix systems, and it is now completely painless for you to create from DRAW 9. You can avoid the driver search and checklist for creating PostScript print files destined for the service bureau. Youll be able to trade files with your Mac-based colleagues. Youll be the envy of your kids carpool. OK, so maybe not that last bit, but your workflow will be easier and youll have more control of your files. With DRAW 9s Publish to PDF (and the right disk-formatting utility), the service bureau operator that peers down his nose at the mere mention of DRAW or Windows will never even have to know where your files came from. If you already use Adobe Acrobat, dont stop reading. DRAWs PDF engine offers several advantages over creating PostScript files and pumping them through Adobe Distiller:
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