Generating PDFs with embedded ICC profiles

Summary:This document summarizes how to set up uCreate Print and uProduce to embed ICC profiles in the PDF output.

Sample application

The application we will be testing is a simple variable postcard containing a single variable text frame and a variable (CMYK) image.

Installing the ICC profile on the client (PC)

  1. Download the eci_offset_2009.zip file from the http://www.eci.org/doku.php?id=en:downloads site.

  2. Install the ISOcoated_v2_300_eci.icc file on the local machine (right-click > Install Profile).

On Windows, profiles are saved in C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color

Generating in uCreate Print a PDF file without an embedded ICC profile

  1. From the uCreate Print panel, select Dynamic Print.

  2. On the left, click the Advanced tab.

  3. Select the options as indicated in the following screen, and click OK to generate the PDF file.

  4. The generated file is a "vanilla" CMYK PDF file without any embedded color profile.

Generating in uCreate Print a PDF file with an embedded ICC profile

  1. In InDesign, select File > Adobe PDF Presets > Define, and based on the XMPieQualityHighpreset,, create a new joboptions file with the output parameters as indicated in the following screen.

  2. Save the file asISO_COATED_V2_300.

    The joboptions file is saved on the local machine under C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe PDF\Settings\ ISO_COATED_V2_300.joboptions

  3. When printing the document using uCreate Print, set this options file for the dynamic print and generate the PDF document (images must be in CMYK format) as follows:

    The color profile is embedded in the PDF document.

Generating in uProduce a PDF file with an embedded ICC profile from an InDesign document type

Preparation

  1. Copy ISOcoated_v2_300_eci.icc to the uProduce server and install it as described above.

    It will be copied to the <Drive>:\XMPie\XMPieExec\Normalizer\ICCProfiles directory.

  2. Copy the ISO_COATED_V2_300.joboptions file to the <XMPie Installation Drive>:\XMPie\XMPieData\Shared\Settings\JobOptions directory on the uProduce server.

  3. Reboot the uProduce server.

Running the application

  1. Log in to the dashboard, install the CPKG, and submit the job.

  2. In the INDD Document Advanced Parameters section, make sure the PDF Export settings are set to the joboptions name copied to the server.

The PDF file will be generated as a PDF/X-4and will embed the ICC profile. Note that images must be in CMYK format.

Generating a PDF file with an embedded ICC profile using FreeFlow Core

We will use Xerox FreeFlow core to add the required ICC profile to the PDF file.

We will create a workflow to process the PDF files and save them to an output folder. We will then create a hot folder to allow automatic PDF file submission.

  1. Log in to FreeFlow Core, go to Workflow Setup, the click the Add button to create a new workflow.

    The workflow will consist of 2 nodes:

    The Optimize node will be used to add the "ISO Coated v2 300% (ECI)" ICC profile and make the PDF file PDF/X-4 compliant:

    The save node is used to save the modified PDF file to a destination folder.

    In this case, we are saving the file to the D:\my_folder\PDFs\output folder. We will also prepend a date & time stamp to the filename:

    We have saved the workflow as "Frank ICC profile test".

  2. Go to Administration > Hot Folders and create a new hot folder as illustrated below.

    The input folder has been set to "D:\my_folder\PDFs\input".  The workflow destination dropdown must match exactly the name of the workflow created above:

  3. To test the workflow, drop a PDF file into the D:\my_folder\PDFs\input folder or use the Job Management and Status screen to upload the file.

    After a few seconds, the updated file should be copied to the D:\my_folder\PDFs\output folder.

Generating a XLIM PDF file with an embedded ICC profile using FreeFlow Core

In the previous section, we set up a FreeFlow Core workflow and a hot folder to add an ICC profile to a PDF file.

We can use this workflow to allow the untagged PDF files generated by XLIM to be processed.

  1. In uProduce, create a new destination and set the folder path to the hot folder input directory created above:

  2. When submitting the job in uProduce, select the created destination as the job output destination. The PDF file will now be automatically processed by FreeFlow Core.

 

Created by: Frank Hubert: October 14, 2021, updated by Mohammad Mansour: April 12, 2022