Unwanted blank pages in separated PDF

[M***@adobeforums.com]

Greetings,

I am using InDesign CS 3.0.1, and I have defined 7 spot colors to separate in my document. I am using an automation routine to import text and graphics, and printing to Adobe PDF. (All spot colors in the text and graphics are on my swatch palette in InDesign.)

I am receiving blank pages in the separated PDF. I realize this shouldn't be the case, and have been reading in the archives for a solution. So far, the only applicable comment I have found is from Dave Saunders:

"Al,

You're missing the point that InDesign suppresses the output of individual blank plates -- the page might not be empty; it just might not have any Cyan on it, for example.

Dave"

This is pretty much the output that I am expecting, and is usually what I receive, but I am strangely enough getting individual blank plates when I print this document. I found a suggestion in the archive to use the Separations Preview to look at the pages... I have done this, and the spot color causing the blank pages is only found on one page, as opposed to every page.

I am baffled, and open to any suggestions as to something I may be overlooking.

Mike

[P***@adobeforums.com]

Please describe in detail how you are making the PDF.

Is this a single page or a multi-page document? Are you printing registration marks or document info? Anything colored in registration will generate a plate for each color, even if there is nothing else on the page.

[M***@adobeforums.com]

I will attempt a detailed explanation of our PDF generation process:

This document contains a B-Master page of graphics containing spot colors A and B with registration marks. It also contains an A-Master page with only registration marks and an autoflow thread of text boxes. Spot colors C, D, E, F, and G are imported as text and graphics via an automation routine, and the pages are created as the flow of the data into the story requires. (This document has 22 pages.) Only the first page contains spot colors A and B, as I started a section with the second page based on the A-Master. Following pages may contain any combination of the other colors, for instance colors C and D, or E and F, or C and G.

The scripting tells InDesign to print a separated PDF, using the Print command, the Printer is Adobe PDF and the PPD is AdobePDF 7.0. I manually select the needed separations in the output portion of the print menu, and this data is saved with the file.

I am seeing a printed separation in the PDF for spot color A with each plate, when spot color A should appear only on the first plate. (When I go to output preview, I can visually verify that this color exists only on the first plate.) None of the other colors are producing blank pages. For the plates that only contain colors C and D for instance, I am only receiving a blank page for spot color A, not for any of the other spot colors.

The reason I am confused is that I have other documents with similar requirements that do not produce blank pages when the PDF is generated.

[J***@adobeforums.com]

In your 4th paragraph, I presume when you say "plate" you really mean "page"

Are there any Illustrator files on the offending pages?

If so, open them in Illustrator see if spot colors A or B are in use in such a way as to not actually show in the ID separation preview, like maybe set to 0% or applied to an object that is behind something else.

Or you can put them in a fresh ID document to see if spots A or B get introduced to the ID swatch palette.

[M***@adobeforums.com]

Four of the colors indeed come from Illustrator as eps files. I have just reviewed each of them to make sure there were no superfluous colors in the swatches, and they all checked out ok.

Should I try to export to interchange format and back to InDesign?