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New Blog Posts: Merging Reports - Part 1 and Part 2

Output for Offset Printer

edited March 2007 in Devices
Hi,

we use ReportBuilder to print large catalogues. The catalogues contain
numerous JPEG images, some of them are grayscale only images others are
CMYK. When printing with ReportBuilder to PDF (Distiller) all images are
converted to RGB and this makes problems because Offset-Printers need CMYK
by design. The Distiller is set to leave all Color-Information as provided
and NOT to convert all Colors to RGB. It seems that RB converts everything
to RGB.

Is it possible to print the JPEGs as they are?

Steve Richmann

Comments

  • edited March 2007
    Hi Steve,

    Have you tried exporting directly to PDF using the built-in PDF device?

    ReportBuilder uses the Delphi JPEG library to natively handle JPEG images.
    I assume that this is what converts your CMYK images to RGB. It may be
    possible to use a more advanced image library to accomplish what you need.
    Take a look at the following article.

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    Article: ReportBuilder Image Support
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------

    ReportBuilder natively supports .bmp, .jpeg, .wmf, .ico image formats.

    ReportBuilder has an open architecture that supports any TGraphic
    descendant.

    For example, ReportBuilder ships with a freeware component called GIFImage
    that can be used with ReportBuilder to print .gif images. (see the main
    report demo app for an example.)

    There is another freeware component called GraphicEx that supports several
    additional formats - including tiff, targa, and autodesk.

    It can be downloaded from:

    http://www.lischke-online.de/Graphics.html


    ReportBuilder can easily support TGraphic descendants with a simple register
    call.

    Below is the code to our ppGIF.pas unit which 'uses' and registers the
    freeware GIFImage component.


    {********************************************************************}
    { }
    { ReportBuilder Report Component Library }
    { }
    { Copyright (c) 1996, 2000 Digital Metaphors Corporation }
    { }
    {********************************************************************}

    unit ppGIF;

    interface

    {$I ppIfDef.pas}

    uses
    ppCtrls, GIFImage;

    implementation

    {***************************************************************
    *
    ** I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N / F I N A L I Z A T I O N
    *
    {****************************************************************}

    initialization

    ppRegisterGraphicClass('GIF', TGIFImage);

    finalization

    ppUnRegisterGraphicClass(TGIFImage);

    end.


    --
    Regards,

    Nico Cizik
    Digital Metaphors
    http://www.digital-metaphors.com

    Best Regards,

    Nico Cizik
    Digital Metaphors
    http://www.digital-metaphors.com
  • edited March 2007
    Hi,

    take also a look at www.hicomponents.com, this image lib has a build in
    support for delphi image registration, so these formats are also working in
    ReportBuilder. The ImageEn from hicomponents has good support for cmyk and a
    lot of other stuiff.

    --
    best regards
    chris (EULANDA)

    www.eulanda.com
    ERP SOLUTIONS
  • edited March 2007
    Thanks Chris,

    Great tip.

    --
    Regards,

    Nico Cizik
    Digital Metaphors
    http://www.digital-metaphors.com

    Best Regards,

    Nico Cizik
    Digital Metaphors
    http://www.digital-metaphors.com
  • edited March 2007
    Hi,

    thanks for your replies. I have now tried both graphic libraries: GraphicEx
    and ImageEn.
    The idea sounds very good but it didn't solve my problem yet.

    That is how i have testet ImageEn

    - I installed the pakages as described in the manual.
    - I called IERegisterFormats in the Create-Event of my MainForm.
    - I created a new Report with RB, added two TImage components and assigned a
    grayscale and CMYK JPEG. In the Image OpenDialog in RB I recognized that
    several FileFormats have appeared that haven't been there before. So I think
    I'm using the ImageEn lib correctly :)

    Then I added a piece of code in Detail.BeforePrint-Event to store the Images
    back to my harddisk to see wether conversion was made. I expected that those
    JPEGs where now RGB, but that wasn't the case.
    The colormodes were the same as in the original files. I recognized that
    some color conversion was made (the CMYK Channels look different and the
    whole image is a bit darker).

    However, all images in my PDF document are always RGB. I have tested the
    Distiller-Settings with PhotoShop to make sure that the problem isn't there.
    PhotoShop did it right, the PDF contained the correct CMYK Image.

    Do you have any other clues or am I using the Graphic Lib wrong?

    Thanks


  • edited March 2007
    Hi Steve,

    I'm not familiar with ImageEn however from what Chris said it seems it would
    be the best to use in your case as they have CMYK support. Perhaps there is
    a property or setting in the image class that will prevent the image from
    being converted?

    --
    Regards,

    Nico Cizik
    Digital Metaphors
    http://www.digital-metaphors.com

    Best Regards,

    Nico Cizik
    Digital Metaphors
    http://www.digital-metaphors.com
  • edited March 2007
    Hi,

    I found out, that ReportBuilder converts each Graphic into a DIB and then
    sends it to the printer with StretchDIBits(). StretchDIBits in theory
    supports CMYK when the DIB is CMYK and the printer is a postscript printer.

    But to enable CMYK support you must not use the old BITMAPINFOHEADER instead
    the newer BITMAPV4HEADER must be used with the bV4CSType (Color Space Type)
    set to LCS_DEVICE_CMYK.

    ReportBuilder creates the DIBs with the old BITMAPINFOHEADER and that is why
    it doesn't work.

    Please correct me if I'm wrong.

    I think it would be a nice feature if RB would support this in a future
    release.

    best regards

    Steve Richmann



  • edited March 2007
    Hi Steve,

    Thanks for the information. We will definitely research this for a possible
    enhancement to a later release of ReportBuilder.

    --
    Regards,

    Nico Cizik
    Digital Metaphors
    http://www.digital-metaphors.com

    Best Regards,

    Nico Cizik
    Digital Metaphors
    http://www.digital-metaphors.com
This discussion has been closed.