How to print a PDF/X Mavericks document

pdfprinting

A few iterations ago, Mac OS X had a "Save as PDF-X" option available via the print dialogue, with an associated file at /Library/PDF Services/Save As PDF-X.workflow that handled the magic suff I assume.

My understanding is that the PDF/X format embeds fonts and does other "preflight" stuff to make a document good for printshops to use. Outputting in this format is possible with Illustrator and other Adobe products, but I would produce a printshop-ready PDF/X file using software I already have (LibreOffice, Word, etc.)

In Mac OS X 10.9, this "Save as PDF-X" option is nowhere I can find.

Is there any simple way to create PDF/X format files?

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=PDF/X

Back in 2010, Philip Regan gave some info about doing it with the then present "Save as PDF-X" feature, but it is no longer part of the print dialogue.
How can I print a PDF X-1A from a iWork Pages document?

Anyone have any ideas?

Best Answer

Create an Automator print plugin that prints as a PDF-X.

Open Automator.app

Select "Print Plugin" at the Choose a type for your document screen

Select "PDF" from the Actions menu

Drag "Apple Quartz Filter to the PDF Documents" to the workflow space on the right

When prompted choose if you want to create a copy of the original, add or don't add

In the Apply Quartz Filter to PDF Documents workflow, in the Filter dropdown, choose "Create Generic PDFX-3 Document".

Choose File-->Save

Name whatever you like (PDFX)

This will add a workflow back that allows for PDFX again. The workflow is saved in your user directory ~/Library/PDF Services/

Related Solutions

How to print a PDF X-1A from a iWork Pages document

If they can take PDF-X1/a, then they can take any of the others as well; you shouldn't have any problems.

PDF-X1/a was simply the first in a long line of iterations of a new PDF schema that basically does a lot of preflighting for you (it's one of the best things to happen in the printing industry in a long time). It means your document is "press ready", which mainly applies to SWOP presses but can apply to small printers as well.

As a footnote to all of that... You can also output press-ready PDFs using the Mac OS X-supplied "Save as PDF" button in the print dialog box from just about any application.

How to print a booklet from a pdf file

For a free and universal alternative you can use the pdfbook script, part of the pdfjam collection which is usually included in LaTeX distributions (notably MacTeX). It's simple to use from the command line:

pdfbook mypdf.pdf

If the above doesn't work, then /Library/TeX/texbin isn't in your PATH (or /usr/texbin for older versions of MacTeX). The best course of action is to ensure PATH is correctly set (lots of command line programs will fail if the PATH variable isn't correct and pdfbook is one of them); this isn't trivial under OS X if you want a consistent behavior between applications launched from the dock and applications run from a terminal so you definitely should search a complete solution to this specific problem. As dirty work-around, you can run export PATH="$PATH:/Library/TeX/texbin:/usr/texbin" every time before you use pdfbook (including in the service below).

If you don't want to use the command line, you can create a service easily.

Launch Automator (on Yosemite it's in Applications/Others)
Create a new document and select "Service".
On top of the right frame, for "Service receives selected" choose "PDF files".
Search "Run Shell Script" from the bar on the top of the left frame and double-click it. Select to "Pass input" as "arguments" in the newly created window.
Enter a simple script running pdfbook, for instance pdfbook "$@".
Save it as "Create booklet" (for instance).
In Finder, select a PDF file, then in the menu go to Services/Create booklet.

My complete script also creates a temporary file and opens the resulting PDF:

TMPF=`mktemp -t bookletXXXX`
mv "$TMPF" "$TMPF.pdf"
pdfbook -o "$TMPF.pdf" "$@"
open "$TMPF.pdf"

The most obvious problem is the several GB download and installation of a LaTeX distribution if all you want is the pdfbook script.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to print a PDF X-1A from a iWork Pages document

How to print a booklet from a pdf file

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