PDF printing

[tech51]

I have a customer who prints documents that have both black and white and colour pages (PDF format) on a C554e.
They have no problem printing them but every page is counted as a colour page even if they are black and white.
If there are no colour pages in the document it counts them as black and white.
I have tried the documents on a C654 and it does the same.
If I use Ms Word it counts each page correctly so I'm assuming this is something to do with PDF.
My question is are there any settings I can change so a PDF will correctly count the pages?
Thanks in advance....

[Synaux]

I have a customer who prints documents that have both black and white and colour pages (PDF format) on a C554e.
They have no problem printing them but every page is counted as a colour page even if they are black and white.
If there are no colour pages in the document it counts them as black and white.
I have tried the documents on a C654 and it does the same.
If I use Ms Word it counts each page correctly so I'm assuming this is something to do with PDF.
My question is are there any settings I can change so a PDF will correctly count the pages?
Thanks in advance....

Are you or the customer selecting grayscale in the print options when printing b/w prints?
What program are they using for the PDFs?

[tech51]

Are you or the customer selecting grayscale in the print options when printing b/w prints?
What program are they using for the PDFs?

It's adobe reader 10 (I think). But as I said its when they're printing documents with b/w and colour pages. They want the colour pages in colour and the b/w as b/w so selecting grayscale isn't an option. My question is can adobe reader distinguish between them to increment the counts correctly?

[jotunn]

Probably source data used to create PDF document was in RGB not in CMYK. RGB black (R=G=B=0) converted to CMYK during PDF export gives something around C=M=Y=K=30, so each page will be treated as color page.

Using PS driver you can try to set [Preferences]->[Quality]->[Quality Adjustment] as [Detail] then play with ICC Profile settings -> CMYK Grey Treatment for Text and for Figure/Table/Graph.

[tech51]

Probably source data used to create PDF document was in RGB not in CMYK. RGB black (R=G=B=0) converted to CMYK during PDF export gives something around C=M=Y=K=30, so each page will be treated as color page.

Thanks for that. That gives me something to work with.

[Synaux]

It's adobe reader 10 (I think). But as I said its when they're printing documents with b/w and colour pages. They want the colour pages in colour and the b/w as b/w so selecting grayscale isn't an option. My question is can adobe reader distinguish between them to increment the counts correctly?

Oh, I misread the first portion of your post.
Here are some alternative pdf readers--perhaps if you play with them one will work better with the counter (PDF-XChange is just as good, if not better than Adobe).

And I believe jotunn is most likely correct here.

In Acrobat Pro X (all I am running at the moment), I see a few options that I do not have time to test personally in advanced printing options:
"Preserve CMKY Primaries"
and perhaps changing the color management to
"Printer Color Management" may be useful.

Also to the notion of RGB, and somewhat random pondering, there is a setting in the Fiery Command Workstation tools for RGB in color setup/management that is off by default--not sure if this will affect the counters or if they are using a Fiery.

Just brainstorming here, but there are utilities that can breakup/combine PDFs into individual files, enabling printing b/w separately from color, if the customer is really so concerned about not printing in color. (I am assuming due to the terms of the leasing contract?) Of course, this strategy is only useful in certain circumstances...

[occus]

I have no experience withe the new model series, but with bizhub c220/452. I think it is the same!
I spend a lot of time to figured out, it seems to me it is a question of ICC profiles.

Word works perfect (windows) because you print in rgb without ICC. Easy and useful.
If you print PDF's there are mostly color profiles in the document.

Buy Adobe Acrobat Pro, and mark all pages which are black, go to utilities and convert the pages to a black/grayscale ICC. (dot grain xx should be on your system)
After that your Printer counts everything correct. so a little pre-work is necessary

Note* if you create your own ICC profile for good colors, you have to accept that your machine counts the black pages as a color page.

[emujo]

W/o the Fiery, or the full version of adobe acrobat, what you send to the printer is what will be printed, had this issue with a client using publisher, they thought they had a 2 page document, 1 side color, 1 side B&W and they sent is as a booklet. MFP charged them for 2 color copies. They didn't see the color elements on the 2nd side and had no idea how to "preflight" the document. So they made about 10K copies and blamed us for the overage. That was fun explaining that it's not our job to teach them how to make a document. Emujo

[occus]

That was fun explaining that it's not our job to teach them how to make a document.

word! hahaha... it is around the world always the same
often the complicated customer uses Mac's and have no idea about handling and icc or profiles... what a joke.

[B0265]

In the PCL driver there is a "Convert to gray scale" setting, you can adjust the threshold values for RGB if they are not equal in the document.