InDesign for QuarkXPress Users [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Controlling How Flattening Occurs

Flattening takes time, and usually adds to the time it takes to print a documenthow much depends on the complexity of the page. There's just no reason to use the highest quality flattening when printing a proof to a desktop laser printer, but you probably don't mind taking the time to get the best quality on an imagesetter or platesetter. To make the process easier, InDesign ships with three built-in transparency flattener styles: High Resolution, Medium Resolution or Low Resolution. Most of the time, one of these settings will work for whatever you're doing.

You can select one of these flattener styles from the Print dialog box, the Export PDF dialog box, or the Export EPS dialog box. Generally, you can match the style to the resolution of your printer (low for proofing on low-resolution printers and high for imagesetters and platesetters). You can also override the flattener style for an individual spread, found in the Pages palette flyout menu. It's rare that you'd need to do that.

Customizing the Controls

If you're a output service provider, and you really need to fine-tune your transparency output, you can create custom flattener styles by choosing Transparency Flattener Styles from the Edit menu. You'll see the Transparency Flattener Styles dialog box (see Figure 94-3). To create a new style, choose the built-in style you want to use as a starting point, then click the New button. A second dialog box appears, offering you a number of controls. The Raster/Vector balance slider alters how the flattening occurs: When you select toward Vectors, InDesign tries to maintain as many objects as vector as the complexity of the artwork will allow. This is usually what you want for high-resolution printing.

However, if the transparency on the page is very complex, some of the objects may have to be rasterized when flattening occurs. The setting for Flattener Resolution determines the flattening resolution when rasterization is necessary. Gradient Resolution is the resolution for drop shadows, gradients, or Illustrator mesh objects. There are also some controls for special situationsfor changing text to outlines to prevent type being only partially rasterized, which can fatten part of the type; for converting strokes to outlines; and for clipping complex regions to prevent an ugly effect called color stitching.

If you're a output service provider, you'll need to know a bit more to optimize your transparency output. We suggest that you look at David's other tome,

Real World InDesign 2 , or refer to the resources we list in Chapter 95, which give more information than we can provide here.