Pleasanton, CA (February 18, 2002) - Lantana, the leader in PDF print production tools, announced that Crackerjack 4 has begun shipping. This new version is a significant upgrade to the award-winning Crackerjack, which is the #1 Acrobat printing product for the graphic arts market. Crackerjack employs a visually-intuitive user interface to tune all aspects of color print production. The "built-in" Crackerjack Pilot feature provides "hot folder" automation with customized settings by device, client, or application. New features include separations preview, spot color mapping, a font embedding "fixer", expanded RGB conversion options, support for Acrobat 5, Mac OS X, and more. Separations preview This allows the user to preview separations before printing. It includes controls to turn off selected inks and to see the effect of overprints, knockouts, and transparency. The preview also reflects Crackerjack settings which can affect output – media size, orientation, scaling, offsets, tiling, mirror and negative print, printer marks, RGB to CMYK conversion, spot color mapping, custom transfer curves, etc. Spot color mapping In addition to the current functions for selecting spot color inks for print or converting them all or individually to process color, this feature permits users to selectively map them into other spot colors. This is useful for eliminating extra separations for spot colors with similar names or for reducing the number of inks in a print job. Font embedding "Fixer" User-selectable preference that allows Crackerjack to check a PDF document for non-embedded fonts before printing. If fonts are not embedded, but can be found on the user’s system printing will proceed without interruption. Otherwise, the user will be notified and given the option to embed fonts that are available on their system or to cancel printing. Expanded RGB conversion Crackerjack’s traditional use of UCR/GCR for RGB->CMYK conversion has been extended to all separation modes. With Crackerjack 4 the user also has the ability to optionally specify that images are to be converted using UCR/GCR, the standard Adobe "Red Book" method, or ICC profiles. When using ICC profiles the user is allowed to select both source (RGB) and destination (CMYK) profiles. If images in a PDF are already tagged with ICC profiles, Crackerjack will automatically use those as the source. "As Crackerjack has evolved, along with Acrobat and the PDF format, we have listened closely to feature requests from our customers and partners", stated Gary Armstrong, Lantana’s CEO. "We believe that the new features and expanded functionality in Crackerjack 4 answers those requests. We routinely hear from customers that Crackerjack has made it possible for them to achieve an efficient, cost-effective, high quality output in a PDF workflow. Wait until they see Crackerjack 4." Crackerjack 4 requires Adobe Acrobat 4.05 or above. The US suggested retail price is $495 plus shipping. Registered users of Crackerjack 3.x may upgrade to Crackerjack 4.0 for $199. Prices will varyinternationally. Consult Lantana’s web site (http://www.lantanarips.com) for further details, demo versions, Lantana’s worldwide network of resellers, and direct ordering information. For electronic delivery of Lantana products, visit the ePublish Store at PlanetPDF.com. For additional questions about Crackerjack or Lantana’s other products, contact Lantana by e-mail to [email protected].