In the following, we give a brief summary of each chapter in this manual. These summaries will help you find the information you are looking for.
Chapter 2 “An introduction to HELIOS PDF HandShake” discusses the use of the PDF file format as an exchange format in a prepress environment or in the printing business.
Chapter 3 “Installation” lists the requirements for the HELIOS Acrobat plug-ins, and describes the installation of the Mac tools.
Chapter 4 “Before getting started” summarizes some general information about the structure and behavior of PDF HandShake.
Chapter 5 “Set up PDF HandShake with HELIOS Admin” gives directions for choosing suitable PDF HandShake settings via the HELIOS Admin program on a client. The chapter describes the relevant dialogs, including options for HELIOS ImageServer users.
Chapter 6 “PDF HandShake utility programs” describes the UNIX programs of which PDF HandShake is composed, and describes in detail how to change options and attributes of these programs manually.
Chapter 7 “Editing pre-separated PDF documents” describes the “HELIOS Plate Control” plug-in for Adobe Acrobat on Mac that can be used to edit the separation plate information in pre-separated PDF documents.
Chapter 8 “Printing with PDF HandShake” describes the “pdfprint” tool that allows printing PDF files directly from the server without opening an application. It also describes how to specify the same print options via the PDF HandShake print plug-in for Acrobat (or Reader) on Mac. Using either the plug-in or “pdfprint”, you can e.g. print separations and make use of the PDF HandShake color matching features.
Chapter 9 “The standard OPI workflow using PDF files” describes how to use PDF files in an OPI environment. It shows how to tag color profiles to PDF high-resolution files, and explains the default behavior of the OPI server when handling PDF files.
Chapter 10 “Export for Imposition with ImageServer” shows how to export PDF files (as PostScript files) for further use in an imposition application. Final printing from the imposition software to the output device requires HELIOS ImageServer.
Chapter 11 “Create PDF Server” is a PDF HandShake feature to automate the PDF creation of any PostScript job. Configuration and setup is easy and comfortable through HELIOS Admin. In addition, the chapter shows how to set up a lower quality “Create PDF” queue, e.g. for bitmap documents in an office environment, using the Ghostscript engine instead of the Distiller for PDF creation.
Chapter 12 “PDF-native OPI workflow” is an essential component of high volume PDF document workflows based on Adobe InDesign software.
Chapter 13 “HELIOS Tool Server” allows integrating remote applications/tools to be used by a main server.
Chapter 14 “Preferences” lists the most important PDF HandShake preferences and explains what they effect when set.
Chapter 15 “Example workflow” illustrates a possible production environment where a customer uses Microsoft Word for document creation and submits PDF files to his printers.
Appendix A “Create PDF files using Acrobat Distiller” gives instructions on how to set up the job options of the Acrobat Distiller software in order to create PDF files that are best suited for being used with PDF HandShake.
Appendix B “Colors, color matching, proofing – basic concepts” gives background information about color management.
Appendix C “PDF Transparency” briefly lists PDF transparency requirements and features.
Appendix D “PDF layers” gives information on layers in PDF documents and shows how these can be viewed, selected and printed via PDF HandShake and its utilities.
Appendix E “About fonts” gives some background information about fonts, different types of fonts and the problems that can arise during printing. The appendix also explains how PDF HandShake deals with fonts.
Appendix F “The fonts we deliver” contains a list of the PostScript Type 1 fonts we include in our software package.
Appendix G “Glossary” explains some product-related terminology.