Quite RGBGone (1.2)

Online User Guide

• What is Quite RGBGone and how do I get it?
• How do I run Quite RGBGone?
• What about compatibility?
• How do I get support?
• What is Quite A Box Of Tricks?

Colour conversion

• Why would I convert PDF colours?
• How do I control the conversion to CMYK?
• What is an ICC profile?
• Why use ICC profiles?
• How do I use an ICC profile with Quite RGBGone?
• Where do I get an ICC profile?
• What about input profiles?
• How do Distiller 3.0 options affect ICC processing?
• Is Quite RGBGone a PDF Colour Management Solution?
• What about UCR, GCR and black generation?
• What is spot colour and how is it converted?
• Are ICC profiles broken in Distiller 4.0?
• What do the warning messages mean?
• What is a Form XObject?

Working with callas pdfBatchProcess Pro

• What is pdfBatchProcess Pro?
• How do I use pdfBatchProcess Pro with Quite RGBGone?

What is Quite RGBGone and how do I get it?

Quite RGBGone is a plug-in created by Quite Software. It is a limited version of their popular Quite A Box Of Tricks plug-in, which performs only one task: conversion of PDF files into CMYK, which may be required to prepare them for colour separation. It removes RGB colours in the process of doing this, hence the name RGBGone.

Quite RGBGone does not perform the separation or printing itself, it only converts colours.

Quite RGBGone is not sold separately, but only in bundles with other products. Initially it will be available only with callas software’s pdfOutput Pro. pdfOutput Pro produces separations, but not of RGB colours. So, RGBGone is a useful companion product.

How do I run Quite RGBGone?

Quite RGBGone is a plug-in for Acrobat Exchange. This means that before you can run it, you need to put it into the Exchange plug-ins folder. The location of the folder depends on where you installed Acrobat, but on the Macintosh it is called Plug ins and on windows it is called plug_ins (with an underscore).

Note that in Acrobat 4.0, “Exchange” is now just called “Acrobat”.

You need to be running Windows 95 or above (including Windows 98) or Windows NT 4.0 or above; or MacOS 7.5 or above on a Power Macintosh. Windows 3.1, 68K Macintosh, and Unix systems are not supported. Acrobat Exchange is required; the free Acrobat Reader will not work.

If this PDF file is put in the same place, and has the same name as the PDF file, it will be available whenever you click the ? button on the RGBGone screens. RGBGone will automatically open the guide to the section which applies to the current screen.

On the Macintosh, the plug-in should be called Quite RGBGone and this file should be called Quite RGBGone Guide.

On Windows, the plug-in should be called rgbgone.api, and this file should be called rgbgone.pdf.

Once the plug-in is installed, and Acrobat Exchange is restarted, you should see a new menu item appear: Plug-ins > Quite RGBGone. Selecting this will allow you to convert the current document, or to set up options for future conversions.

As a short-cut, you can also start the Info function of RGBGone by clicking the i icon with an arrow that appears on the Exchange toolbar.

After installing the plug-in it will run in demo mode. In this mode every page changed will have an “X” placed over it, but all the parts of RGBGone can be tested. Warning: These “X” marks cannot be removed so take care not to save your files and destroy your original documents!

When you purchase a license you will receive a serial number and private code. Click the Licensing button, type your details and the two numbers. The serial number you receive is going to look like this: 1234-5678-1234-1234, with 16 digits in all. The private code is a 4 digit number like 9876. If you don’t seem to have both, check to see if they have been written together like this: 1234-5678-1234-1234 9876.

The Licensing button is on the About screen. This screen is shown when you first run RGBGone, and can be pulled up at any time by clicking the ?? (two question marks) button on the RGBGone screen. This will show the serial number, but never the private code, so you should keep both in a safe place.

What about compatibility?

This version of Quite RGBGone was written for Acrobat Exchange 3.0, 3.01, or 4.0. Before upgrading to a later version of Acrobat you are advised to check the latest information on our web site, http://www.quite.com . It will not work with earlier versions of Acrobat.

PDF files have a version number, and confusingly this is not the same as the Acrobat version number. Acrobat 3.0 writes PDF version 1.2, while Acrobat 4.0 writes PDF version 1.3. If you open a newer version of PDF with Quite RGBGone you will get a warning message - again you are advised to check for the latest version of RGBGone using our web site.

After RGBGone has processed a file, it is only compatible with If a file started out compatible with Acrobat 3.0, it will still be compatible after any processing. But if it was only compatible with Acrobat 4.0, it will usually remain compatible only with Acrobat 4.0.

To emphasise: processing a file with Quite RGBGone, won’t change its compatibility.

Also, any processed file will no longer be an ASCII PDF (as if it were created by Distiller with the ASCII setting). This should not usually be important, as there do not seem to be any applications that require an ASCII PDF.

In summary: RGBGone will read any PDF file from Acrobat 4.0 or below, but the files it writes are compatible only with 3.0 or above. Before working with any release over 4.0x, check for updates to this software.

How do I get support?

We want you to be able to use Quite RGBGone to solve your problems. If you have a question that is not answered in these pages, or you think you have found any sort of bug, check on our web site http://www.quite.com/ for the latest information. If that doesn’t help, please contact your reseller or send an e-mail to support@quite.com.

All software has bugs, and although Quite RGBGone is based on the well tried and tested product Quite A Box Of Tricks, there may still be some lurking. We need your help to tell us when you find a bug, so that they can be fixed as quickly as possible. Please don’t assume that someone else has already found it and told us about it. Thank you!

What is Quite A Box Of Tricks?

Quite A Box Of Tricks is a product from Quite Software, which can also convert to CMYK. In fact, RGBGone is based on a portion of Quite A Box Of Tricks.

Quite A Box Of Tricks can perform other functions including:

• Convert to greyscale
• Convert all text to black
• Increase the minimum width of lines (“remove hairlines”)
• Shrink images by compression and subsampling to make files more useful for placing on the Web, or e-mailing
• Form fields and annotations can be removed, or flattened (made part of the document)
• An Info function can be used to check details of images (such as compression ratio, resolution or colour space) or text (e.g. actual font name and whether it is embedded).

Why would I convert PDF colours?

Here are some reasons why you might want to use the colour conversion functions in Quite RGBGone.

• Many systems of printing colour on a press require that colours be in CMYK, that is a mixture of the colours Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK. These are the same as the inks used in printing, so the colours in the file are used directly to select the amount of ink used. Unfortunately, many files use RGB colours, that is a mixture of Red, Green and Blue, as used for the colours of light in a monitor.

Some systems will automatically convert RGB to CMYK, so on these systems conversion to CMYK is not a vital issue. But others simply will not work, that is, they will not print in the correct colours or print at all, if RGB is used.

RGBGone can do this conversion for you, if the printing system does not do it automatically.

• If a file contains spot colour, RGBGone can optionally convert these to CMYK. This avoids problems where unwanted printing plates are produced.

How do I control the conversion to CMYK?

When you select CMYK conversion, a Setup button is available. With this you can control the conversion process.

• You can select between a fast, fixed conversion to CMYK and one which uses ICC profiles, provided your operating system supports them (MacOS or Windows 98). See How do I use an ICC profile with Quite RGBGone? The fixed conversion applies “maximum UCR”, and tends to minimize the amount of ink applied to paper.

• For text and line art you can select whether or not to convert. This is everything in the document except images. Images in a single colour may be called masked images; such images will be converted as a part of text and line art.

• For text and line art you can also select that equal amounts of R, G, B colour are converted directly to greyscale, rather than a CMYK mixture. This may produce clearer printing of black text and thin lines, and is usually recommended.

• For images, you can choose whether or not to convert.

• For images, you can select that they must be recompressed only with ZIP. This guarantees that the image is not degraded. By default, images that had been compressed with JPEG will be recompressed with the same JPEG settings. If the ZIP option is on, the converted file size may be many times larger than the original file size.

• You can choose whether or not all spot colours are converted to CMYK. This is off by default, so that spot colours are preserved.

What is an ICC profile?

ICC profiles are files which describe how colours are to be converted for particular devices (printers, scanners, or monitors). Each profile describes how to convert colours to or from a “universal” space, which is device independent.

This means that you can take a colour from one device (such as a scanner), and convert it to universal space, then convert to the colour for a different device (such as a printer). This should keep the colours as accurate as possible, within the limitations of the devices (for instance, few printers can make a bright green or bright blue).

Why use ICC profiles?

Traditionally colours are expressed as RGB (red, green and blue) for monitors and CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) for printers, including colour presses. This works well, but the results of printing the “same” colour can vary widely from device to device. Monitors may use different settings, so red, green and blue look different. And, printers use different inks, printing technologies and paper which can produce different looks. “Generic” RGB and CMYK has been considered “good enough” for many people, but others have struggled to produce the same colour on screen, on paper proofs, and on the final printing press, to satisfy demanding clients.

A number of different ways to manage this have grown up, called “colour management”. For instance, Adobe Photoshop has allowed the user to pick from a list of inks and papers, and adjust their properties. This works but has a number of disadvantages. It can only be used for Photoshop images; other applications will do colour management in a different way (which has to be learned separately) or not at all; and setting it up correctly requires considerable expertise.

ICC profiles can replace all of the manual settings. If used correctly, they are easier to work with (though creating ICC profiles remains a highly skilled task). Above all they are a standard (described in full on http://www.color.org ), and the idea is that they should be usable with a wide variety of applications and systems. Apple and Microsoft have added ICC support to their operating systems, so there should be widespread use of ICC profiles before too long.

Acrobat 4.0 introduced embedded ICC profiles. These are profiles right inside a PDF file, that describe how colours are to be interpreted.

How do I use an ICC profile with Quite RGBGone?

When converting to CMYK, click on the Setup button first. This allows you to choose between a built-in (fixed) conversion, and ICC profile conversions. This is available only if the operating system supports ICC profiles. MacOS 7.5 and upwards support Apple's ColorSync. Windows 98 supports Microsoft's ICM 2.0. Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 do not have any built-in colour management, so only the fixed conversion is possible. Windows NT 5.0 (or NT 2000) is expected to include ICM 2.0.

After selecting to use colour management, you must click CMYK profile. You then get a list of profiles to choose from.

• On the Macintosh, the list contains all suitable profiles installed in the ColorSync™ Profiles folder within your system folder. Before ColorSync 2.5 this is a folder within Preferences. From ColorSync 2.5 the folder is at the top level of the system folder, and can contain subdirectories (but only one level deep).

• On Windows 98, you will see a file open dialog. This can be used to open any profile. ICC profiles are saved as type *.icm. The opening folder will be the system's default profile folder, such as c:\windows\system\color. All profiles are shown, including unsuitable ones (those for monitors or scanners). To get more information on a profile, right click and select Properties.

Where do I get an ICC profile?

As ICC profiles catch on, this is a question many people will be asking. There are several answers.

1. If you have installed high end applications on the system, you may already have a good collection of relevant profiles.

2. For printers, especially high-end proofers we expect the printer manufacturer to supply them. Notice that profiles are only applicable to PostScript printing when we deal with Quite RGBGone. This is because non-PostScript printing in Windows or Macintosh will always be done by converting back to RGB, making a conversion to CMYK a waste of time!

3. For offset and other industrial printing, profiles are available for generic specifications of device, such as newsprint printing.

4. It is possible to create ICC profiles for particular presses and types of ink and paper using equipment that analyses printed samples. This is an expensive and skilled task.

5. Adobe Photoshop 5.0 allows you to set a combination of ink and paper settings, with other advanced settings like UCR/GCR, and save them as an ICC profile.

6. If you are sending work for inclusion in another publication, for instance a colour advertisement, ask for the ICC profile that applies to output. Of course, ICC profiles are still fairly new, and they may not know what you are talking about, but it is worth a try.

What about input profiles?

Those who understand ICC thoroughly will be asking what Quite RGBGone does for input profiles. In general, to convert from RGB to CMYK you would need a profile for the RGB device. Quite RGBGone does not support this. Here's what it does.

In Acrobat 3.0, there are three ways to specify colour in a PDF file, that will need conversion to CMYK.

• Lab (or L*a*b*) colour is a device independent colour. It has already been converted from RGB. This is still comparatively rare in a PDF file.

• Calibrated RGB is a form of RGB which includes all the information necessary to make a profile. Distiller can generate calibrated RGB colours under a number of circumstances, including when an RGB Photoshop EPS is placed on a page and distilled. Photoshop EPS files contain calibrated RGB even if using Photoshop 4.0 or if ICC profiles are not being embedded by Photoshop 5.0.

• Device RGB is “generic” RGB, with no profile or other information to define how the colours are to be interpreted.

Remember that you can use the Info function in Quite RGBGone to find out whether an image is in Lab, Calibrated RGB, (Device) RGB or already in CMYK.

In the first two cases, no profile is required. The PDF file contains all the information necessary for an accurate conversion. In the final case, Quite RGBGone applies a fixed profile. The profile used is based on an emerging standard for “generic RGB” intended for use with office applications, web browsers and other applications where the users typically have no understanding of colour management. It is called sRGB and is described on http://www.sRGB.com . It has a gamma value of 2.2 (for those interested in such things).

In Acrobat 4.0 a fourth way to specify colours for conversion has been added. This uses ICC profiles inside the PDF file. Files can contain ICC profiles with one channel (greyscale), 3 channels (typically RGB) or 4 channels (CMYK). Quite RGBGone 1.2 is only interested in 3 channel ICC profiles. It will process these in one of two ways:

1. If you are using fast conversion, the ICC profiles are ignored and the information is converted as RGB. This is the only option in Windows 95 and NT 4.0.

2. If you are converting using a CMYK ICC profile, then the two profiles are combined to do an accurate colour conversion. If the profile is unusable, a warning message is issued, and an sRGB profile is used instead. See Are ICC profiles broken in Distiller 4.0?

How do Distiller 3.0 options affect ICC processing?

Several Distiller options are important to how colour is managed.

• The Convert CMYK images to RGB option will produce smaller files, but this conversion is not based on any specific profile in Distiller 3.0. This means that colour information is lost. For best results this option should be kept on, to preserve any CMYK colour that is in the file.

• The Color Conversion options determine how calibrated colour is handled.

• Unchanged tells Distiller to keep calibrated colour and Lab colour where it finds it, but to leave other colours alone. This is probably a useful default. Quite RGBGone will apply sRGB to the uncalibrated colours only.

• Device independent converts all RGB colour to calibrated RGB. This is useful, but you cannot control the profile used for uncalibrated colour, which is an RGB colour space (gamma 1.8) supplied by Adobe. If this is done, colour which is not originally calibrated will be calibrated in the PDF, and Adobe's profile will be used for conversion.

• Device dependent removes all calibration information, converting all RGB to device RGB. This is not recommended unless you need to remove a completely spurious calibration.

Quite RGBGone will then apply sRGB profiles.

Distiller 4.0 also has options affecting colour processing. See Are ICC profiles broken in Distiller 4.0?

Is Quite RGBGone a PDF Colour Management Solution?

We do not claim that the ICC profile handling has made Quite RGBGone into a full solution for colour management. This is partly because that was not the intention, and partly because of the limitations of Acrobat 3.0 and 4.0. For instance, after conversion to CMYK, we cannot control how Acrobat displays the colours on screen. They may look wrong, even though they should print successfully.

Also, a full colour management solution would take into consideration monitor profiles, and allow conversion from CMYK to CMYK, by converting between printer profiles. Acrobat 3.0 does not allow printer profiles to be added to PDF files, so there is no way to automatically reconvert to a new profile.

Acrobat 4.0 does, but the support in Distiller currently appears to be flawed. See Are ICC profiles broken in Distiller 4.0? There also does not seem to be any way to select a monitor profile in the 4.0 versions of the Acrobat viewer.

With Quite RGBGone, you should keep your original RGB file. You should convert to CMYK once for each output device (e.g. proofer and press) for best results.

In fact, we would recommend that, for now, you should work with CMYK directly if you have a choice. Quite RGBGone is intended to be a valuable tool when there is no other choice, e.g. when processing office documents for offset printing.

What about UCR, GCR and black generation?

UCR, GCR and black generation are all ways of expressing how much black ink is substituted for equal amounts of cyan, magenta and black. They do not apply when using Quite RGBGone.

Firstly, the conversion that is performed uses either a fixed table (maximum UCR), or uses ICC profiles. ICC profiles control the complete conversion to CMYK, including all UCR, GCR and black generation, so it is not appropriate or possible to take any other settings into account. PDF files may contain UCR and GCR settings, preserved by Distiller, but you can see that Quite RGBGone will not use them.

Secondly, when outputting separations with the Crackerjack product (see http://www.lantanarips.com ), you are offered choices of UCR and GCR. These apply only when RGB data is to be printed. So, if you have converted all colours to CMYK already, these settings can have no effect on printing. In fact, if you are printing separations with Crackerjack you do not usually have to convert to CMYK before printing, because the output device will do it for you according to the UCR/GCR specifications. This does not give the choice of an ICC profile, however.

What is spot colour and how is it converted?

Spot colour is a term used in professional printing to mean a special colour of ink that is used to add colour to a page. This is different from ordinary colour printing, which mixes cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) to make full colour, also known as process colour.

Spot colour is usually used to add one or two specific colours, as in the case where a page contains only black and red; it is more cost effective to use black and red ink than to set up and mix CMYK. Spot colour can also be used to add colours over the top of CMYK, such as a metallic finish on a book cover.

A PDF file can contain spot colours, and if colour separations are printed all of the colours will result in separate printing plates. This is not always desirable, though. Sometimes, designers make a mistake in page designs or illustrations, and might choose “spot red” when a page is to be printed with CMYK. If nothing is done about this, five printing plates may be produced - cyan, magenta, yellow, black and red.

When you convert to CMYK, you have the option to select Convert all spot colour plates to process (CMYK). This is off by default. When it is on, the spot colour is converted to CMYK and will not produce an extra plate. The CMYK value used is the one chosen by the designer, which is the one you will see on screen, or when printing to a desktop colour printer.

You have a similar option Convert all spot colours to greyscale when converting to greyscale. This is on by default, because people usually want a greyscale page to be completely grey and black. By switching this option on, you can preserve a spot colour, while converting all the normal RGB and process (CMYK) into greyscale.

Acrobat 4.0 supports a new kind of colour specification called DeviceN. This allows you to mark on several spot plates at the same time. At present, Quite RGBGone cannot convert DeviceN colours even if you ask to convert spot colours. If any DeviceN is present in the file, a warning message will be issued.

Are ICC profiles broken in Distiller 4.0?

The following information is based only on our independent evaluation, and refers to features in Adobe’s products which are subject to change without notice.

Acrobat 4.0 supports ICC profiles embedded in PDF files. The viewer may use them for display, and Distiller may add them to PDF files. A number of Distiller job options control this.

Our studies suggest that at least some of the time, Distiller 4.0 adds bad profiles to PDF files. The bad profiles are not usable. We expect that a future release of Acrobat will fix this.

It is important to realise that Acrobat viewers will never tell you that an ICC profile is bad. They are designed to ignore profiles that they do not understand. So, typically, information is displayed as if it is a normal RGB colour. It will look reasonably correct, but will not have accurate colour matching.

When Quite RGBGone converts to CMYK, and you are using ICC processing, incorrect profiles will produce a warning message. Quite RGBGone will automatically substitute an sRGB profile.

You may want to avoid Distiller’s ICC profile handling until the situation becomes clearer. There are two ways to completely avoid ICC profiles:

• Select Compatibility: Acrobat 3.0 on the General screen in job options; or

• If using Compatibility: Acrobat 4.0, then use Leave Color Unchanged on the Color screen in Job options.

What do the warning messages mean?

These are some of the warning messages that may be issued during colour conversion.

Warning: some parts of this PDF file didn't make sense. Results may be incorrect.

This message occurs when RGBGone couldn’t work out what part of a PDF file meant. That means it was left alone, but something may be wrong with the file. There are no cases where we would expect a valid Acrobat 3.0 file to produce this warning.

Or, you may be using RGBGone with a file created with a newer version of Acrobat than 4.0. Because new versions of Acrobat might handle colour differently, please check our web site http://www.quite.com/ to be sure you have the latest version of RGBGone.

Note: this PDF uses Calibrated RGB or Lab (device independent) colour. Calibration has been ignored, but the conversion to CMYK has been completed for these colours.

This message only occurs when you are not using ICC profiles to convert. It means that the file contained device independent colour, and acts as a warning that the original file might have been made with high expectations of colour accuracy.

Important: due to an Acrobat bug, parts of this file may seem to be unconverted, and there may be spurious warnings. We recommend you save, close, and re-open this file. To avoid this problem, select 'Copy document first'.

This message occurs when a file contains form xobjects that have been recoloured. See What is a Form XObject? The problem is fixed in Acrobat 4.0, so the message will disappear if a version later than 3.x is found to be in use.

You will never see this message if you process an entire document and select Copy document first.

It is important to realise that the Acrobat bug (in 3.0 and 3.01) has two parts. First, after the conversion, parts of the document may seem to not have been converted. This is most obvious when converting to greyscale. Second, after you save the document Acrobat still keeps trying to show the old information, but it no longer exists. This results in a wide range of error messages, which you should ignore and close the document quickly.

Bad PDF warning: one or more images converted were missing some information. This probably means the PDF file was damaged before conversion, and results should be carefully checked.

Occasionally, damaged files have been found which can be viewed successfully, but which are not usable after conversion. In some cases they could be viewed but not printed. This new message alerts you to the problem with the original file.

Warning: this PDF uses DeviceN (multi-spot plate) colours. This release of the software cannot convert the colours, they are left unchanged.

This only occurs when converting to CMYK and some of the new “DeviceN” colour is found. This is designed to mark on multiple spot plates at the same time. It might, for instance, result from a duotone in Photoshop. The current release will leave these unaltered, which is often what is desired; there is currently no way to convert to CMYK from DeviceN. A future release may start to convert DeviceN when converting spot colours.

Warning: an embedded ICC profile was found which was not for RGB data. It might be for Lab or XYZ. This plug-in cannot use such profiles. The conversion was made using sRGB, but this may produce incorrect results.

This message only occurs when converting to CMYK with an ICC profile, and when an embedded ICC profile has been found that we cannot handle. ICC profiles can contain many different kinds of colour. Most 3-channel ICC profiles are RGB. There are other kinds, but Quite A Box Of Tricks does not handle them. We also do not expect to find them. If you encounter a PDF file which gives this message, please contact Quite Software.

Warning: a bad embedded ICC profile was found in the file. It was ignored and treated as sRGB. Note that bad profiles never produce error messages, they are just quietly ignored.

This message only occurs when converting to CMYK with an ICC profile, and when an embedded ICC profile has been found that is damaged. It is important to realise that Acrobat will tolerate bad ICC profiles, and quietly use an alternative, with no messages. This message may be the only notification you see that the profiles are bad.

Our initial studies suggest that Distiller 4.0 frequently embeds damaged ICC profiles, so this message may be common. See Are ICC profiles broken in Distiller 4.0?

What is a Form XObject?

PDF is a complicated file format, but the details of it are usually hidden. However, sometimes when using Box Of Tricks it’s useful to know a little more about how PDF works, and in particular what a form xobject is.

First, they aren’t anything to do with fill-in forms, or anything made with the forms tool. They just share a similar name, but they have been part of PDF for much longer than fill-in forms.

Each page in a PDF file is usually independent, but that can mean there is a lot of duplication. It is possible for a PDF generator to collect a set of drawing instructions, text and images together, and make them into a form xobject. This can be used over and over again in the file, or several times on the same page; it can be used at different sizes too.

Form XObjects are not often seen, but they can arise:

• When Acrobat Exchange is used to optimize a file, Exchange attempts to detect if pages have the same background. If they do, the background may be collected up as a form xobject and used over and over.

• When the preserve OPI information is checked in Distiller 3.0, a form xobject may be generated for each image that has OPI information. When working with TIFF files and high end DTP applications this can happen unexpectedly. The preserve OPI information is best kept off unless you are working with OPI, a special tool for managing high resolution images.

• When you use Form field management in our separate plug-in Quite A Box Of Tricks, form fields (the fill-in kind) may be turned into form xobjects.

Form xobjects do not interfere with any colour conversion, except that you may see the unexpected effect that, if you recolour a single page, all pages containing the form xobject will be recoloured. Unfortunately, there is a bug in Exchange 3.0 and 3.01, which means that, when a form xobject is recoloured, Exchange may not notice, and may continue to show the original object. In this case, a warning message is issued, advising you to save, close, and reopen the document. After saving, Exchange may start issuing error messages; close the document. When re-opened the document should be displayed correctly. This does not happen with Acrobat 4.0.

Acrobat 4.0 does have a new problem with form XObjects. If you attempt to edit text in a form XObject, using the touch up tool, it can damage the PDF file. Acrobat 3.0 would simply refuse to edit such text, so this is a new problem.

What is pdfBatchProcess Pro?

pdfBatchProcess Pro is a plug-in for Adobe Acrobat Exchange created by callas software. At the time of writing, it is available only as a part of the pdfToolbox product.

It can be used to automate certain tasks in Acrobat Exchange. Please visit http://www.callassoftware.com/ for more details.

How do I use pdfBatchProcess Pro with Quite RGB- Gone?

These instructions are subject to change without notice. For support questions related to the general use of pdfBatchProcess Pro please contact callas software directly.

1. Start the plug-in. Once pdfBatchProcess Pro is installed, you will find it in the Plug-ins menu. To use this, you must first close all open documents.

2. Create a new job.

Click the New button to create a new job, or task. This task must be given a name.

For each automation action you must define four folders. They should each be new folders with no other purpose.

• In is a folder into which you will place files that you want to process. Files will be removed from here as soon as they are processed.

• Result is used for files created as a side-effect of the automation.

RGBGone does not create any files, but this folder must be defined.

• Error is a folder into which files that cannot be processed will be moved. Errors might include a non-PDF file, a damaged file, or a protected file.

• Processed is a folder where processed files will be placed.

RGBGone will change the input file in the way you choose, and the result will be saved to the processed folder.

3. Add an action

Each job can have one or more actions; it is no use until you define an action. Click the New button to add an action. You can add more than one action, even from different plug-ins, and they will be processed in order. For each action choose the following.

• Plug-in is the name of a plug-in. Only plug-ins specially written for pdfBatchProcess Pro can be automated. You can choose Quite RGBGone from the list of plug-ins.

• Command is one of the actions in the plug-in. With RGBGone you will normally choose the action Convert to CMYK (RGBGone). You can also choose the Optimize action to potentially reduce file size and make the file download faster from the Web. Optimize should be the last action if it is used.

• Parameter appears only for certain actions. For Convert to CMYK (RGBGone) you should choose the parameter Current Settings, which takes whatever was most recently set up in RGBGone. Note that this is not fixed at the time you record the action, but will change if you later choose different setup options.

4. Start processing

Save action and job by clicking OK. Then click the Start button. PDFBatchProcess Pro will immediately start processing the files in the In folder.

On success files will be written to the Processed folder.

5. If required, check the log

If you find anything in the Error folder you will want to check the log. PDFBatchProcess Pro starts a new log each day, with the current date. These files are never automatically deleted.

The log will show every file processed, and includes any information messages written by the plug-in. If the plug-in fails, and a file is moved to error, you should be able to find out why this happened by reading the log file.

Log files are simple text files, not PDF files.

Credits

Copyright © 1999 A.W.Inston and Quite Software Ltd.

This document is the user manual for Quite RGBGone, a software product. The software is supplied under the terms of a license, and may only be used or copied in accordance with the terms of the license.

Quite Software Ltd. 105 Ridley Road

Adobe, Acrobat, and PostScript are trademarks or registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Inc.

Other trademarks acknowledged.

The software includes portions from the Independent JPEG Group, and the ZLib compression library.