making PDFs

[burndog]

I'm just starting to use CS2 and am a complete rookie at making PDFs. Is there a difference between the reliability of successful printing between a PDF created and preflighted in InDesign as opposed to creating a postscript file and then distilling it to create a pdf through Acrobat?

[Scott]

Nope. Adobe apps contain internal Distillers basically. So exporting from Indesign to PDF is just as good as postscript file to distiller. You'll notice when exporting to PDF you have all the options you would have in Distillers Job Options settings.

Same holds true when saving PDFs from Illustrator or Photoshop, you have all the relevant options right there.

[burndog]

I kind of thought that, I took a weekend prepress course and did not really trust my instructor, but to be honest he is a Quark guy and did not know ID very well, which kind sucked, I really did not learn much. You would make a much better instructor! Thanks Jolt, I knew you would have the answer.

[Scott]

Thanks burndog :) Xpress is another animal and really demands that you use Distiller to create PDFs. Even the internal mechanism in Xpress for generating PDFs just calls Acrobat Distiller in the background and there is no truly internal PDF conversion in Xpress.

Xpress is a decent program.. if you HAVE to use it. ID is just so much more elegant.