EXTIF pro


Colour separation without detour via PDF - not only from MS Office

All of you are familiar with the following problem: You want to prepare a document from any PC-application like MS Word, PowerPoint or Excel for printing. But how to convert the graphic information from the original document into colour-separated, exposure-ready image data ?

From your everyday experience you may know that the most conventional way via PDF and PostScript has been paved, so far, with many inconsistencies regarding colour fidelity, missing fonts and pixelation of embedded raster graphic objects; very often, the end-result on printed paper clearly differs from the original document in colour, font and contrast.

Amongst other reasons, that is because on the conventional workflow via PostScript / PDF the native document format (like .ppt or .doc) at first is merely translated into an other script language (PostScript or PDF, respectively), but is being rastered just later on – and mostly this is done spatially separated, i.e. on an other device.

On many documents this temporary translation into PostScript / PDF results in translation losses, just like on a text, which for example is not being translated from Spanish into English directly, but at first to Chinese and only after that from Chinese into English.

The new EXTIF pro relieves you from these burdens. EXTIF pro is a Software RIP, which directly docks the Windows graphics engine (GDI), and stores the graphical data of the original document directly rastered and colour-separated as CMYK TIFF file. In this way, you will easily obtain exposure-ready image data from all your PC-applications, the result being a perfect reflection of the original.

Within the architecture of Windows operating systems, as a printer driver EXTIF pro belongs to the same class as screen drivers do, i.e. EXTIF pro does exactly the same as your screen driver does, as well, when displaying for instance a PowerPoint document on the screen. So to speak, EXTIF pro provides a screenshot of the entire document at the desired resolution, this way ensuring that in the end, on the printed paper, you get exactly what you saw on the screen before.

Advanced image-technology ensuring finest print quality

So far, Pixelation of embedded raster graphic objects had to be put up with so to speak as a mathematical law of nature: "When there are not sufficient dot informations, then you just can´t add any fictitious ones" - but surprisingly - you can!

Same clipping area, left hand side in PDF, right hand side with EXTIF pro and Interpolation Algorithm. The number of different colours actually used within a picture is about 5 to 12 times higher with Interpolation.

Vector graphic objects on the other hand can be considerably enhanced by Anti-Aliasing - please pay special attention to the outlines of the Mexican dog’s eyes in the following example:

The same goes for the unpleasant "Stairs" or "Jaggies" in writings.

Talking about "adding fictitious dots": Also the Trimming Problem can be soved absolutely loss-free:

Striking colour fidelity - not just from MS Office

However, EXTIF pro is not only suitable for MS Office documents. It also maps especially the colours strikingly true to the original from all other PC-Applications.

An example: The original document, in this case a Photoshop file (*.psd), at first was once saved as PDF in Photoshop, and once put out by EXTIF pro as TIFF file. Then both were printed on the same day in the same digital printery on the same paper. Result: The PDF on the left, EXTIF pro´s TIFF on the right; for comparison purposes the original below:

You don´t believe this? - just convince yourself with the free demo version - you´ll be surprised...

EXTIF pro avoids the typical weaknesses of PostScript / PDF

Most PDF converters inclusive Adobe Acrobat 6.0 convert indirectly via PostScript. But some documents in principle can not be correctly converted into PostScript, for instance the following MS Word document containing an WordArt object (original document at www.DriverLab.de/EXTIFpro/TestDocums/WordArt.doc). More info.

On the right: correct printing result with EXTIF pro: not transparent in the overlaid areas, just as in the original document. On the left: Incorrect result in PDF: transparent overlay area; two overlaid opaque areas resulting in erroneous transparency:

Being a locally operating Software-RIP, EXTIF pro of course neither knows "problem documents" nor missing fonts:

Summary of main features

One look at the Advanced Property Pages shows EXTIF pro´s versatile capabilities:

TIFF files are not only easily portable from Windows to Macintosh, but - unlike PDF - also offer the opportunity to retouch and postprocess each single colour channel separately before exposure.

Upon request, EXTIF pro also inserts crop marks, register crosses and colour wedges. Besides all common standard CMYK colour profiles, EXTIF pro offers choice also from user-defined RGB and CMYK profiles, optionally extracts neutral grey to the K-channel, and solves the trimming problem by means of optional overlap.

Summary:

• suppresses Pixelation on embedded raster-graphic objects by Interpolation Algorithm
  
  
• smoothes outlines of vector-graphic objects by Anti-Aliasing
  
  
• offers all common standard CMYK colour profiles
  
  
• user-defined RGB and CMYK profiles processible
  
  
• paper formats up to "A0 Extra"
  
  
• optional automatic imprint of crop marks, register crosses and colour wedges
  
  
• optional excerpt of neutral grey into K-channel
  
  
• resolution up to 4800 dpi
  
  
• solves the "trimming problem" by means of optional overlap
  
  
• customization: user-defined paper sizes and colour wedges
  
  
• simple installation and handling
  
  
• suitable for Windows 2000, XP and Vista
  
  
• detailed illustrated user manual
  

Price:

EXTIF pro Single User Licence: 187 € (~ 225 $, depending on current exchange rate)

EXTIF pro Network Shared Licence: 298 € (~ 360 $, even cheaper than 2 Single User Licences)





Operating system:

Printer drivers are no programms, but extensions of the operating system. The operating systems, which the EXTIF pro printer driver extends, are

• Windows 2000
• Windows Server 2000
• Windows XP
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Vista
• Windows Server 2008

EXTIF pro does not work under any other operating system.

If you need to convert PDF to word you can use software found on the web. There are various reasons to convert PDF files, and among them is that you can also convert PDF to Excel as well.