PDF creation options.

[ekashinsky]

I'm attempting to desing a color management workflow for VectorWorks. As VectorWorks has no ability to convert to an ICC printer profile at output, I must be able to output color consistent files from VectorWorks and give them an ICC profile that accurately describes the color space that they were created in.

First of all, my assumption is that the best color space to describe VectorWorks colors is sRGB. Building on that assumption the workflow would be to create a PDF with the embedded profile of sRGB and using Acrobat for final output to a color managed printer.

I have noticed though, a wide variance in colors that vectorworks will output to a printer, and I'm not sure whether that variance also carries over to PDF creation.

I'm looking for an idea of what variables I'm dealing with in the VectorWorks software that would affect PDF creation.

[Art V]

ekashinsky,

As far as I can tell VectorWorks is not colour management aware at all, so my guess would be not to use the built-in PDF conversion but print via Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional instead to create a PDF file

Acrobat Standard/Professional is colour management aware, so you can use its colour management options to get a more consistent output. If you have the ICC profile of the printer you can have that included in the PDF settings file as well when you print via Acrobat.

Assuming that VectorWorks' colour output is consistent, this may be as close as you can get with VectorWorks for the time being.

With consistent colour output I mean that a colour will come out the same way each time when printed on the same printer with the same batch of ink/toner and paper, regardless of whether the colour is accurate or not.

On another printer the colour may come out differently, but that is because of the printer and not necessarily because of VectorWorks.

If VectorWorks' colour output is not consistent, then no colour management system is going to be of much help and you might as well do without colour management.