Trapping in InDesign

I'm designing a newspaper ad that will be black and white with one spot color. There is a grayscale image that has spot color text on it, and this text has a black drop shadow applied.



How do I trap this text? I'm not sure how to deal with the tranparency, spot color issue.



Thanks,
Trapping in InDesign
You don't. Special trapping, if any is required, is done by the newspaper printer's prepress department.



A PDF/X1-a file should be fine, unless the newspaper has provided other settings.



By the way, are you sure about the spot color? It's a pretty rare newspaper today that actually prints any spots. I'd check with your ad rep about the specs.
Trapping in InDesign
Hi Peter,



You know I've been emailing their ad spec department and they have been unresponsive. The ad sales person told me it was spot color only, but all the spec sheets she said say CMYK color only.



On top of that I asked her if I need to do any special trapping and she said the ad production people said yes...which also seems weird to me. I thought most newspapers did their own in-rip trapping.



I think I need to call back and find someone to answer my questions.



Thanks so much Peter.

If the rep can't or won't help, ask to talk to the head of the in-house ad production department.

Hi Peter,



I ended up being able to get a hold of someone in production.



They said not to worry about trapping and to set up the color as CMYK.



Thanks for your help.

I used to work, briefly, for a newspaper that actually did use spot color, but we also made flats for the camera. The ad reps were largely clueless about anything other than how much to charge. :)

i ''The ad reps were largely clueless about anything''



A universal truth.

In days of old a spot colour was simply a colour other than black, but not part of a four-colour set. Ads had three

charge levels - black and white, spot colour (black and white plus, say, a coloured box round the ad or blocks of colour

to reverse type from) and four-colour, with full colour pictures in.



Additional charges were levied for additional spot colours, but few people took into account that most of the single

spot colours that were sold were normally at least three inks, to get warm red, reflex blue, green etc.



k