Product

• Prepare 2.1
• Prepare Pro 2.1
• Prepare 2.0
• Prepare Pro 2.0

Platform

Macintosh

Operating system

Mac OS X

Symptoms

Prepare files are limited to 31-character file names, but sometimes a file name is truncated and is only 27 characters long.

Cause

The file naming fields in Prepare's QuarkXPress extension and Adobe InDesign plug-in are limited to 27 characters, plus the 4-character .pdf extension, for a total of 31. Longer file names will be truncated automatically. The problem is that all files processed through Prepare receive the extension .err.pdf, regardless of whether the file passes or fails preflight. This means that 8 of the 31 available characters are used up, leaving 23 for an un-truncated file name. If a file passes preflight and all 23 characters are used, the final file name will be 27 characters long (the 23-character file name plus the .pdf extension). If the file fails preflight, the extension .err.pdf will increase the file name to 31 characters.

For example, if you name a file abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyza (27 characters), during processing Prepare automatically renames it to abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw.err.pdf (31 characters, with 4 characters truncated from the original file name). If the file passes preflight, it is renamed abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw.pdf (27 characters). If the file fails preflight, it is renamed abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw.err.pdf (31 characters).

Solution

To avoid truncating of file names in Prepare, limit them to 23 characters. When using the single page feature with auto page numbering and auto section numbering, keep in mind that these add to the file name length and may cause truncation if the resulting file names exceed 23 characters.

Technical contact(s)

Todd Belcher

Submitted by

Todd Belcher

Date submitted