why do you use the spot color?

Hi Carlow

For translations, we use text black as a fifth colour set up as spot.

If you have a 5th ink as "text black" then you could alias it to regular "black" in the ink manager to be part of the normal process colors, the normal ink order, and the normal overprint options.

Unless you really need to print an extra black ink on the press, you might do well to investigate alternative methods for translations.

Thank you Spamjim. It is standard book publishing practice to supply coeditionable files with seperate text black and my clients would not accept another form of files. My problem is really how to set the text black as overprint rather than reverse out on the opaque panels. This is the first time I have had to supply repro pdf's and I am baffled at the number of settings ergo margin for error. Any further advice on where in the menus I can achieve overprint, apart from the preferences where overprint is on, would be greatly appreciated.

...indesign behaves differently to quark (quark not a problem), which means you need to work differently in the end with global overprinting spot colors...

...generally speaking spot colors in most instances need to be knocked out unless in very special circumstances and in those very special circumstances you can advise your print provider to ensure a spot color does overprint when ripped, even though the source artwork isn't overprinting, the data still exists behind the spot color for a reverse situation to be made in a commercial RIP...

...the other option is to use acrobat pro with third party software like Enfocus Pitstop or Arts PDF Crackerjack...

...normally for users of indesign the global overprint issue is not a problem as they can inform the print provider of their needs if a global overprint is required on supplied artwork on a given spot color and any reputable provider will have the tools to help...

...in most cases, for things like varnishes, they are created on different layers by designers and this kind of work is normally pre-meditated, so layers can simply be turned off or the work has to be created with overprints "manually" inside indesign as you go along...

...if you are dealing with someone else's file and you don't have the tools to fix it, then you have the choice of charging them to fix it, or get them to do it if the exported spot color really must be overprinting everywhere...

...and lastly, as mentioned, informing your print provider of your requirements...  

andrew

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...to further add...overprints are done in the attributes palette in indesign on a manual basis...or inside character styles, object styles etc...

...quark on the other hand allows you to set a whole quark spot color to overprint in one dialog.

andrew

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Thanks Andrew, wholeheartedly agree with both your comments and wouldn't try to go to final repro without the proper tools/expertise. I used the wrong term in my description and actually meant print ready pdfs, I found the solution in overprint in the fill and stroke type style palettes as you say in your second post.