How do I turn Word pages into hi-res PDFs?

[stephen]

I'm trying to create some 300dpi charts for a book my dad is working on. But when I use the Print command to export to PDF and then try to open at 300dpi in Photoshop, the files look really ragged. Just type from a word processor.

Any ideas?

[anonymouse1]

What word processor are you using?

Also, PDF test isn't stored at a particular resolution--only PDF images.

[raz]

perhaps you need to embed the fonts?

[stephen]

I'll give that a go. They're the most rudimentary fonts. New Times Roman, etc.

[stephen]

[quote anonymouse1]What word processor are you using?

Also, PDF test isn't stored at a particular resolution--only PDF images.


Right. That's what perplexes me. I assume Photoshop distills at whatever resolution you tell it. I'm trying to turn 14 individual pages into JPGs or TIFFs.

I'm using Word 2004.

[anonymouse1]

I don't think JPGs are PDFs.

I don't understand what you mean by "Photoshop distills"

Why are you using Photoshop? What are you using it for?

[TheTominator]

It sounds like you are trying to use Photoshop to rasterize some formatted text (and probably lines or shaded boxes too). The original material is in vector format and created by a word processor.

First try copying the page of the word processor and pasting it directly into a blank Photoshop document that has been set up to be 300dpi and 9inx11in (or sufficient size to hold your page content).

If that doesn't work, I would create a PDF document like you have done. Make sure that it is of sufficient quality by zooming in a lot when previewing it with a PDF viewer program. Then open it with Photoshop and specify 300dpi in the dialog that comes up when Photoshop opens the PDF file. Such a dialog comes up for me using Photoshop CS2.

If that doesn't work, you can use 'gs' on the Mac OS X Terminal command line to rasterize the PDF page directly. This program is already bundled free with Mac OS X.
Enter the following command one one line substituting your filename for myinputfile.pdf.

gs -dUseCIEColor -dFirstPage=1 -dLastPage=1 -dUseCropBox -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -r300x300 -dNOPLATFONTS -sDEVICE=pngalpha -dBackgroundColor=16#ffffff -dTextAlphaBits=4 -dGraphicsAlphaBits=4 -sOutputFile=myoutput.png myinputfile.pdf

This will create a 300dpi PNG file named myoutput.png. You can convert the PNG to TIFF using Preview.app or Photoshop if you desire.

There is probably a ghostscript DEVICE selection to convert directly to TIFF, but since I copied and pasted this off of a How-To page, I don't know it offhand.

[JoeM]

If you just want a 300 dpi bitmap and you have a scanner, you can print out your pages and then scan them. You can also take a screenshot at 300 dpi with an app that does it and bring that into PS.

[Speedy]

Interesting. What happens when you Print as a PDF and open the PDF normally? Mine opens fine and I can zoom in and all is sharp and crisp like you would expect a PDF to be. I open it in Photoshop and it looks like shlt. Must be something done purposely to degrade the PDF.

[anonymouse1]

So why do you have to use Photoshop to prepare stuff for this book? Why not just prepare it in something else?