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"PDF2DTP from @Markzware saved my digital bacon today!
(They make such great stuff)". And really, we really like to hear that stuff, as would
any software developer,
so I thought we'd reach out to her and try to learn and understand more exactly
what happened. So, Claudia maybe you can first give us a little background about
what you do and how you earn your digital bacon, so to speak.
My digital bacon, yeah. Well, my background is
in prepress. I'm not a designer and so
I've spent the last however many years taking
files apart and fixing them, so that they would print.
But I thought, well, I'll go out there and find designers and I'll train them
to build their files right, because the way I learned software was by taking
apart things that didn't work,
and so, I became a trainer about fourteen years ago. And so, now I work as a trainer
and technical writer,
and I have a book called Real World Print Production that's used as a text book
in some schools, the idea being that if I could teach them to do it right, maybe
printers wouldn't want to slap someone. Yeah, it's great. I saw here on your...
I think it was up here on your Twitter
profile, "Author of 'Real World Print Production.'"
and "Class Clown and Science Student of the Year."
Yes, odd combination, but..."
So, how do we exactly...
Well, first of all, just for people who don't know, Markzware's PDF2DTP is a
PDF to InDesign conversion filter and it will
basically, with a click or two, convert your PDF files into InDesign.
It doesn't really matter where the PDF comes from.
And what was happening in your case, exactly?
This was a rework of an old,
old file that a client had done, and there was one page with this
big chart on it and
it was not part of the file, but they wanted to incorporate it.
So, I said, "Okay, send me the
InDesign file." And they couldn't find it, but they could find a PDF.
And it was a rather complex table.
And I thought, Well I could send it over, but I'm so far behind now,
and then it hit me. I thought well I could take it into Acrobat and
wait a minute! I've got the Markzware plugin. I'm an idiot.
This is what happens when you don't sleep enough.
And I thought, well, I'll see how well it does because I've used it before on fairly simple
things and it does a fabulous job.
I thought, well, if it can get me any part of this, it's going to save me
some complete re-creation of it and
it was almost perfect. I very nearly wept with joy, frankly. (laughs)
Wow! Great, great to hear. Yeah, it's a good... It...
you guys make fabulous stuff. You always have, but it's
that "take a thorn out of somebody's paw" when they're
really in a jam. You know, it kind of wins their heart.
Yeah, thanks.
Do you have something to show us how
or what you were doing, or how it happened or where it worked out?
So, are you seeing my... are you seeing the PDF with
the chart on it?
Okay, there we go. I see a Schedule of Events and I guess that's your
PDF, right? Right? So, it has this ghosted picture behind it
and this big table that I did not have to retype.
So, once I had my moment of lucidity,
then I thought I'll replicate by going into InDesign and
show you just how how painless this is.
So, it's just PDF2DTP and then Convert PDF.
And then I cleaned up...
I cleaned up my desktop for you. (laughs)
It's good we had this meeting.
It is. Oh, it's all still there. It's just in a folder. And look at that!
The image and everything. And I thought, well, I'm probably going to lose the image,
but there's this, you can see what it does is it actually pulls out the image
and makes a TIFF,
which I just find astounding,
but the only thing I had to change was
it lost the black background here, so I just had to come
up here and change my fill to black.
Here we go. It just took it a minute to catch up.
Right. It's Friday. It is Friday.
For me, it doesn't matter. It all runs together. And then, the other little thing
I had to fix,
I had to go over here into Effects and
back off on the opacity of the fill.
And I think part of what's happening is that, because we have
every bit of software we own going, it's kind of slowing things down.
Right. Wow.
Come on. I didn't have to type it over and, look, and it's the table.
Yeah.
the emotional impact that it was for me, like uh oh.
Well, yeah, you understand the complexity, like you said, of creating these tables
and to redo them is a timely process.
And, mind you, Ron Crandall also had to work many extra hours
to get these tables to work and they don't always come over perfectly.
You'll have to do some touching up. But still...
It's an amazing job, you know.
It is fantastic. Wow, wonderful! Well...
If I ever meet him, I'll hug him. (laughs) He'll appreciate that.
Well, he'll see the video. He'll get a virtual hug.
Okay.
So, yeah, we really appreciate you sharing
this. If you want to hear more testimonials on
Markzware's PDF2DTP or our other products,
cruise on over to youtube.com/markzwaretv and down below, you'll get
a host of different playlists
and one of those is Testimonials
where you can click on and view a
plethora of wonderful user feedback
and comments and praise on
PDF2DTP, but also on Q2ID,
and FlightCheck, and other Markzware products.
For more information on Markzware's
PDF2DTP, cruise on over to markzware.com today.
There, you'll get more information on
Markzware's PDF to InDesign plugin,
or PDF2DTP, Thank you.
David Dilling from Markzware,
wishing you a fantastic day!