Adobe Illustrator CS4 - Manual (Page 431)

424 USING ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR CS4
Printing
object remains in vector form. However, selecting this option may result in paths that are too complex for the printer
to handle.
Stitching, where rasters and vectors meet.
Note: Some print drivers process raster and vector art differently, sometimes resulting in color stitching. You may be able
to minimize stitching problems by disabling some print-driver specific color-management settings. These settings vary
with each printer, so see the documentation that came with your printer for details.
(Illustrator only) Select Preserve Alpha Transparency (Flatten Transparency dialog box only) Preserves the overall
opacity of flattened objects. With this option, blending modes and overprints are lost, but their appearance is retained
within the processed artwork, along with the level of alpha transparency (as when you rasterize artwork using a
transparent background). Preserve Alpha Transparency can be useful if you are exporting to SWF or SVG, since both
of these formats support alpha transparency.
(Illustrator only) Select Preserve Spot Colors And Overprints (Flatten Transparency dialog box only) Generally
preserves spot colors. It also preserves overprinting for objects that aren’t involved in transparency. Select this option
when printing separations if the document contains spot colors and overprinted objects. Deselect this option when
saving files for use in page-layout applications. With this option selected, overprinted areas that interact with
transparency are flattened, while overprinting in other areas is preserved. The results are unpredictable when the file
is output from a page-layout application.
Preserve Overprint (Acrobat only) Blends the color of transparent artwork with the background color to create an
overprint effect.
Preview which areas of artwork will be flattened
Use the preview options in the Flattener Preview to highlight areas that are affected by flattening. You can use this
color-coded information to adjust flattening options.
Note: The Flattener Preview is not intended for precise previewing of spot colors, overprints, and blending modes. Instead,
use Overprint Preview mode for those purposes.
1 Display the Flattener Preview panel (or dialog box):
• In Illustrator, choose Window > Flattener Preview.
• In Acrobat, choose Advanced > Print Production > Flattener Preview.
• In InDesign, choose Window > Output > Flattener Preview.
2 From the Highlight menu, choose the kind of areas you want to highlight. The availability of options depends on
the content of the artwork.
3 Select the flattening settings you want to use: Either choose a preset or, if available, set specific options.
Note: (Illustrator) If the flattening settings aren’t visible, select Show Options from the panel menu to display them.