Bob Levine wrote:
Why not put the text on its own layer?
Ya, I wrote that earlier. It is the solution, but it is very time consuming. Remember, I am dealing with full color books that have 500 pages with a very complicated layout. When we have time we can fix it, but as you know time is money and normally we want the easy way out.
The thing is that I receive a lot of files (mostly from Europe) that has the whole layout already done with the text in a spot color. It's the old way of working, but I have no say in how they work. Sometimes they are files done many years ago.
So after receiving those files we translate the text in French (canada) in the indesign files and when I have to extract the text ONLY, it's either I have a graphic designer spend the whole day editing the files or simply export (postscript) the text alone. it's MUCH quicker to just output the text in separation.
I mean, it wouldn't be such a big thing for them to have that. In the pre press world, this is an option greatly missed. You dont hear about it too much because you can still use the postscript, but i have the feeling adobe is killing this slowly.