[cissyfont]

I designed some signs in QuarkXpress Max OSX and made pdf to send to the printer,
but they open it on a PC in Adobe Illustrator and the fonts are missing, even though when I check the pdf file the fonts are embedded. They said they had to export my pdf as a tiff, but when they sent me a proof and it looks very grainy.
I think this is a Mac vs PC thing or a Quark vs Illustrator thing.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
cissyfont

[almaink]

Just why are they opening this PDF in Illustrator in the first place? Illustrator is not a PDF editing application, thats what Acrobat is for. You would see the same thing with an Illustrator eps if the fonts are not loaded into the system opening the eps. The PDF will print just fine as long as you embedded all the fonts when you made the PDF when output from Acrobat, Quack or InDesign. If it were me I'd look for another printer that knows how to handle PDF files correctly. If you really have to work with these people convert all the fonts to outlines, although in Quack thats not an easy thing to do as it can only do it one line at a time. Since I'm guessing that you alo don't have Acrobat Pro, another option is for you to open the PDF in Illustrator and convert to outlines yourself then send it along to the poorly educated printer. BTW if you don't have Illustrator a demo download is available at Adobes web site.

[cissyfont]

Thank for the input. I don't have Acrobat Pro, but if I did, could I convert the fonts with it? I had a friend open it in (I think) PitStop and converted the fonts to outline and another friend who open it in illustrator and converted the fonts to outline. I'm going to send the printer the test files and see what happens. I have 12-13 of these signs to do. they are interpretive signs for the county I live in. The printer "EnviroSigns" has a website with graphic specs, but most of it is for Illustrator/Windows. The signs are printed with UV ink - I don't know if that has something to do with the quality, because I think the ink is injected into it and has a plastic coating?
Thanks Again!

[almaink]

Either of the files your fiends converted for you will work and yes Acrobat Pro version 7 can do the text to outlines conversion. Sign shops do tend to still be windows based so if you are going to be dealing with them a lot it would be a good idea for you to either get Illustrator, Acrobat pro or even dump Quack for InDesign, as Indesign can convert all the fonts to outlines at once just like the other applications.

[MacKayaker]

Respectively, this is not a PC/Mac thing - it is an issue of not finding out what files they are setup to work with. Most sign shops do most of their work with vector based art.
I would suggest recreating the sign in Illustrator. Convert text to outlines, then there are no font issues. You could also save the image as an EPS from Quark, then open it in Photoshop and save it as a tif, if that is a file format the shop accepts, but depending on the sizes involved, going to pixels may well compromise the quality of the job.
For future jobs - I'd suggest contacting the company before designing the job. Very few sign shops use or work with Quark. As a designer, you'll gain the respect of shops by asking, at the beginning of a job, what file formats and/or programs they use to process the jobs.
As a designer, your responsibility is the end result. You want to make it as easy as possible for whatever shop you work with, to produce the design you have, so the customer gets the results they are expecting from you. Provide the job in a file they can easily deal with and you have a lot better chance of getting the result you intend.

[cissyfont]

They preferred Adobe Illustrator but they did accept:
Mac / Quark Users:
We can only accept True Type & Open Type fonts. Please allow us to substitute fonts, or you can design the layout in Adobe Illustrator or InDesign so that you can convert the fonts to curves.
They sign company is EnviroSigns.com
I designed 8 signs so far and they told us they would accept a pdf.

[MacKayaker]

I understand they said that they would accept a PDF, but from your post, that isn't working. PDF is unfortunately a diverse file format, with a lot of variants. It's a bit like saying, "I drive a Chevy." You might ask, "A Chevy what?" Might be a car or truck, new or old - you don't know. Chevy isn't specific enough and in truth there are a bunch of ways to create a PDF file, but not all PDFs have the same characteristics and at this point there are a number of different PDF specs, too. Some will work for some processes and some won't. This is the reason I suggested working closer to what they prefer. The reason they prefer them is predictability. If it is a sign that has to be scaled up, a vector formatted file works well - a pixel based one does not.

[pikkyzhu]

Pdf can be output directly. Why export it to tif? If they export to tif, how it came out grainy? They can export to tif using high resolution 500 or higher. But the color will be changed during this process.

[charlieartist]

Quote:

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I understand they said that they would accept a PDF, but from your post, that isn't working. PDF is unfortunately a diverse file format, with a lot of variants. It's a bit like saying, "I drive a Chevy." You might ask, "A Chevy what?" Might be a car or truck, new or old - you don't know. Chevy isn't specific enough and in truth there are a bunch of ways to create a PDF file, but not all PDFs have the same characteristics and at this point there are a number of different PDF specs, too. Some will work for some processes and some won't. This is the reason I suggested working closer to what they prefer. The reason they prefer them is predictability. If it is a sign that has to be scaled up, a vector formatted file works well - a pixel based one does not.

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This is why reputable firms have guidelines for submitted PDFs, or even Distiller prefs for customers to download. As for font issue--there is llikely no reason to open it in Illustrator. The press-ready file can be ouput from Acrobat, or saved as and EPS from Acrobat and placed into Quark, for example.
Regarding outline art in PDF--if the fonts are embedded correctly, the text can be converted to outlines by your vendor using Acrobat 7/8 or PitStop. Opening an Enfocus-certified PDF in Illustrator would no doubt cause issues--the entire font file isn't placed in the file for a number of reasons...
Now, if your signs use cut vinyl lettering, now, I could see the need for outlines...