Save Multi-page PDFs from Illustrator

Yeah, yeah... I know. It's been a long time. What can I say? I've been wicked busy.

Okay, so maybe I ran out of things to talk about as well. Keeping up with a blog is hard work. You'd think just finding the time to do it would be the troublesome part. But man, post content is where it's at.

This post might be the beginning of a new breed of posts. Typically, I post mainly about broad topics which relate directly to graphic design and web development. However, that is very limiting. Instead, I will open it up. Allow for more tips and trick's I've discovered. Announce developments in graphic and web design that may interest readers. Pretty much anything I want to, just as long as it loosely related to design.

So how about an Adobe Illustrator tip?

I've been having issues with a specific (Windows-based) client viewing PDF files I create on my Mac. His assistant, who is on a Windows box, can view them just fine. I've yet to discover where the precise issue is, but it pretty much came down to me having to distill his files in a legacy version of Adobe Distiller 4.0. This was tedious, since it required me to boot up my G4 Sawtooth (as Xeon PowerMacs do not run classic applications) every time I needed to distill something for him. Now, the problem only exists with multi-page PDF files. Single PDF files that I can save as PDF directly from Illustrator display perfectly.

Illustrator is certainly not a page layout application. It's mainly for illustration. But there is a certain number of us out here that need multi-page support from Illustrator. It just makes things easier sometimes.

So, up until CS2, if you wanted to create multi-page PDFs from within Illustrator, you had to print to a PostScript file, then use Preview (or Distiller) to convert that to a PDF.

In CS2, Adobe added the ability to save multi-page PDFs without needing to print to PostScript. It's fairly hidden, but if you go to Save as, choose PDF as your format (click Save), then in the Save Adobe PDF dialog, click the bottom checkbox, "Create Multi-page PDF from Page Tiles."

(Let me add, you will need to visit the Print dialog box and enable "Tile Full Pages" under Setup before the Multi-page option when saving will be un-grayed).

Now, you may be wondering how this differs from the PostScript method. Well, first of all... it's a heck of a lot faster, not to mention easier. Secondly, saving this way embeds ALL fonts, not just subsets. This was the problem that my client had been having (he didn't have the necessary fonts installed). It gets extremely technical, but some time along the way, Adobe decided to embed subsets of fonts when using Distiller. This is fine, but it can lead to problem.

In the long run, I've been much happier as of late. As has my Sawtooth. It's been sleeping like a baby for about 28 days now. Every day I can go without using a classic application the better.

This has been today's clarified butter.

Free WiFi Abounds

So here I am, writing my first post away from the office. I am on a short break during a video shoot for a wedding. It will be a long day (started at 6:00am and will go 'til 10:30pm or so). There is a particular place I like to visit when I shoot weddings: Schlotzsky's. Why? FREE WIFI (and excellent food)! It's hard to visit a general region and not find a hot spot. The problem is finding a free connection (such as at Schlotzsky's). McDonalds has not caught on yet, as they have affiliated with AT&T to offer Pay For service at outrageous prices. Haven't they caught on by now that their sales will increase exponentially by offering it, mainly from geeks and business heads that can't go 30 minutes without the internet? All Peter Piper Pizza locations that are owned by corporate offer free wifi, and are adding it to franchises slowly. I've seen them popping up at Subway locations as well. Apple's Retails Stores also have free wifi. While it's not technically offered as an open network to hitch onto, it's there, and works well from the comfy mall chairs just outside the entrance. Heck, they won't even mind if you browse the aisles wirelessly (as long as the device is an Apple).

I guess (in all fairness) we have come a long way. I remember grabbing those AOL CDs for the free minutes (only to cancel days after my trip). It's interesting how easy it is to cancel with AOL when you give the reason, "I was just using you for the free dialup."

I offer a free wifi connection from my office to anyone sniffing. While I am sure my ISP wouldn't like to hear that, I don't have many connectors. From my office I can pick up 7 or 8 connections... 2 or 3 of which have WEP. I am sure glad they are there for those times that my cable goes out (which is not too often).

So. If you have a wifi router... open that thing up. Share your connection (just make sure you have a good firewall). I run all Macs, so that's an easy thing to accomplish. One day we will have a massive web of free wifi that acts very much like the current cell phone network. Until that time comes, give your 300 foot circle of radiating internet goodness to the sniffers. It will pay you back in the long run.

This has been today's clarified butter.

That looks great... now off to press!

So here we are. We've created a great design for our client. Whether it is a spec sheet, stationary, brochure, flyer, catalog, manual, etc... it needs to get printed.

Now, when we first started those many years ago, we used to handle a lot of that printing (being middle-men). Professionally we hated being responsible for any foul ups caused by the printer. Personally, I hated collecting sales tax.

For the past several years I have worked solely with a company based out of California. They are a great high end, high run full color offset outfit. Their prices are phenomenal, and their quality immaculate (kind of sounds like ProGravix, I know). The best part of it all is that any customer not in California saves the sales tax (which sort of offsets the shipping, which can get pricey for huge heavy orders).

Now, while we take no cut or kickback on the order, we still provide our client all the support they need to get their art to the shop. This California outfit, Print Runner, allows customers to submit their orders, charging it directly to their credit cards. After the order has been submitted, we upload the necessary artwork to their servers.

So take a gander at Print Runner's prices. I'm sure you will be highly surprised. If you find some great prices, give us a shout to create that great art (at a similarly great price).

This has been today's clarified butter.

What economic downturn?

I must first apologize for the long delay between posts. I've been consumed with a fairly complex project for Tad Inoue, who manages www.tadthedietcoach.com. This site relies heavily on PHP, mySQL and several HTML tricks to pull it all together. The site features a store, forums, photo gallery, blog, and many other static pages.
It's a type of site with a theme I've never worked on before, and not my cup of tea, to say the least. It was certainly a daunting task, but well worth the results, and the client seems to be happy as well.

So, that's what I've been up to for the past week. Sure, we've had other projects sprinkled in-between. A few ads, some fabric banners, a logo design. Seems like things don't seem to be slowing down.

Which brings me to the precise content of this post.

Certainly we are seeing the impact our economy is having on our personal lives, and on the local cost of goods we need to keep things rolling. But, the good thing about having a web based business is that your income is not determined by any one local economy. ProGravix works with hundreds of clients around the world, diversifying our income across many continents. Obviously we have seen a slow down with our video services, but this is generally a result of local families being impacted by the crunch.

We're happy that we are not affected too bad by the increased price of gasoline (seeing only a slight increase in the cost of supplies). Personally I am in the market for a new vehicle, and while I hardly travel great distances by car, I don't see that justifying the purchase of a much desirable SUV. For the time being, I roll a Chevy HHR. I like it. It's retro, and gets great gas mileage.

I just hope that I may one day replace my totaled Jeep Liberty.

This has been today's clarified butter.

iPhone and the SDK

Apple, Inc. today released a beta version of their Software Developer Kit for iPhone. I always get excited about Apple events, and news about great new releases and developments from Apple.

Now, you are probably wondering how this relates to design, or more specifically, ProGravix.

Well, it doesn't.

Okay, so maybe it does a little. Developers (in most cases "programmers") and designers are two completely different breeds. It's almost impossible to find someone that is a very creative designer that also has a rich knowledge of programming and back-end environments. I for one have always hated programming (and by rules or polarity, love design).

The great news about this SDK is that it gives these developers all the tools they need to create robust, enterprise grade applications for iPhone and iPod Touch. (This would be like asking Dreaweaver to create all your graphics, and code in HTML, as well. Just won't happen.) So, hopefully in June we will see hundreds, if not thousands, of applications for iPhone and iPod Touch. I'm personally excited for an AIM client.

So, getting back to how this relates to ProGravix. Well, we always shied away from anything involving programming... so much so that we turned down very lucrative offers. We always believed that we were designers first and foremost, and that we should focus purely on that. Our customer's thought differently.

I personally have taught myself PHP, mySQL, Java, JS, and enough ASP to cause trouble. It was a daunting task, but turned out to be very beneficial. Now, I won't be calling myself an expert anytime soon, but at least my toes are slightly damp. We've already revamped our online billing and estimating system using PHP. Hopefully we will be able to translate this all into a richer proofing and artwork accessibility program. In the meantime, I think we are doing pretty well (and much further along) than any of our competitors.

Email signature faux pa?

I'm the kind of guy that prefers to receive plain text emails. I know, sounds odd right? You'd expect a creative-minded person to want to receive the all frills version. I'm more into getting to the meat of the email, and don't care to wait for the cute little images and backgrounds to load.

It's been a general email faux pa to use images (be it logos or that cute little animated bunny you're so crazy about) in signatures. The problem with email is that all clients render the email differently. It might look neat on your end, but what does the recipient see? Usually a mess.

As you can see, my plain text email signature is very clean. I like my clients to be able to get the info they need, and in an uncluttered, very clean way. This is not to say that I will not design someone an email signature with logos. It's very possible to get away with a little bit of customization, but just don't go crazy.

Another tip is to not attach the images that you use within your signature to the email. This is tacky. Make sure these images are posted on a web server, and you modify the signature code to point to these locations. This will speed up the download time, and increase your recipient's readability of the email. So have fun. Just don't go crazy.

This has been today's clarified butter.

The new breed of designers (and their practices)

When I first started in the graphic design business I was fresh out of my Junior year of high school. By chance I applied for a position with AlphaGraphics in their lasergraphics department. I was paid minimum wage, while they took in $75 for every hour I worked.

Now, mind you, this was several years ago... even before the advent of America Online. Customers would physically drive to our store, bring hard copies of logos, photos, content, etc. for us to paste up (I actually was trained by a seasoned AlphaGraphics employee who was very skilled in the lost art of paste up). We would advise them that their proof would be available within 24 hours, which would require them to drive back to the store to follow up. We would generally make changes while they waited, but this would depend upon the current customer load in the store at that time. Artwork would be provided to the customer or our printshop in hardcopy "camera ready" artwork.

Boy have things changed.

ProGravix receives orders via our website, email or other electronic method. Very rarely do we receive requests via phone (nor do we follow with changes via phone). Once the order comes in, we begin working on it as soon as our schedule allows. Generally within a few hours an initial proof is developed, and made available through our online proofing system. Changes are requested via email, with those changes being made within an hour, and made available for online proofing again. Once the artwork is approved, artwork files are made available via an easy to use download service. Certainly we can mail you artwork on CD (or DVD) if you prefer, and that service is free. A very small percentage of clients actually need artwork delivered via mail, and is usually indicative of projects where the final artwork files are several hundred megabytes.

We do not offer in-house printing like AlphaGraphics, but then again we are not a printshop. We are a digital design shop. This is a clear distinction that should be made. Everything we do is digital, which in turn allows us to provide artwork to printshops in digital form. Sure we work closely with a few printshops that we prefer, but that doesn't mean you must use them.

Obviously we create things that are intended to be shared with others, and when web design is not involved, sharing means physical media to physically broadcast. Brochures, letterhead, ads, etc. These all need to get printed. If you need helping in getting your print order rolling as well, let us know. We'd be glad to help. And oh, by the way, we don't make a dime in doing so.

This has been today's clarified butter.