Some media is usually printed in two or more languages, but remain otherwise unaltered.
In this case we can be economical by printing once in four-colour and then use an extra zinc-plate for each language. There are some things we should be aware of before designing this kind of files.
First of all, in order to be able to change languages by using one zinc-plate only, we must use only black for whatever belongs to each language. And the black should be pure black, without any mixes with cyan, magenta or yellow.
In order to make the designing easier, we can create a different layer for each language and use the one we need each time.
We also must make sure not to let the letters of each language pierce the background. On Quark and Indesign, black is automatically printed over, which means it doesn’t alter or pierce the background. On Illustrator, we have to use Window à Attributes à Overprint fill or stroke, to set it up.
PDF including all colours
PDF without the black channel
Tip: If we want to highlight some titles or charts, we can place the letters in a coloured frame without any black, instead of using coloured letters.
In order to proof-check our project before sending it to be printed, we open the PDF with Acrobat Professional and use Advanced à Print Production à Output Preview. When we close the black channel we should not be able to see any language elements. In case we have missed something, we can go back and fix it until there are no language elements on the cyan, magenta and yellow channels, before handing it out to the printers.
We can do the same with menus including and not including prices.
In case we want to remove a small text on one side of the file, we can make sure its background is white so we can remove it on the zinc-plate without having to remove another plate. However, the text we want to remove must only consist of black and no other colours.
Media printed in two languages. Changing just the black fonts.