Activate the checkbox “print empty pages” in the print window.

Ralf

ha, thanks, overlooked that option even though its pretty obvious.

> When I print postscript a multi page document from InDesign and distill it through acrobat

Why are you going through Distiller to get PDFs? InDesign CS2 exports PDFs just fine... (and often more reliably).

Mainly to cut file size down. For this job the Distilled PDF is 56mbs as opposed to Exporting the PDF from InDesign which is 756mbs.

What are the benefits of exporting PDFs straight from InDesign? Why is it more reliable?

That’s a huge difference in file size. Are you using equivalent settings in both applications?

> What are the benefits of exporting PDFs straight from InDesign?

You avoid the extra step of having to generate PostScript files and running Distiller to process them.

> Why is it more reliable?

InDesign has full access to the elements on the page (and their properties) and thus can easily convert them into PDF or PS instructions. But if you have to further process those files, there’s a slight change that somethings won’t be correctly converted (from PDF to PS, or vice-versa). What I’m saying is, it’s better to get to the final format directly from the original, then through a series of conversion steps.

Here’s a real life example: http://www.typophile.com/node/21264

Mainly to cut file size down. For this job the Distilled PDF is 56mbs as opposed to Exporting the PDF from InDesign which is 756mbs.

InDesign CS 2 also also allows you output using common PDF standards or to save custom PDF presets. If you find that your exported files are too large, you may want to consider what data in the file is likely to be causing the issue. For example, the Compression settings in the PDF Export Preset dialog will allow you to chose what compression format to apply to images as well as compress text and line art. It’s likely that the preset you’re choosing in Distiller just has different variables. It can be confusing. For typical design documents, I often stick to the PDF/X-1a:2001 preset.

Just came across this post (Why “refrying” a PDF is evil!) and though it adds some info to this discussion.

[There is a] wide variety of PDF features that can NOT be represented in Postscript. Remember that the last update to Postscript (Level 3) was in 1997, while PDF has undergone 3 revisions (1.4, 1.5 & 1.6) since then - with 1.7 coming shortly with the release of Acrobat 8.