No Option for Printing Separations in Acrobat 11

Question

I do not have the option to print separations from Acrobat Pro 11 on OSX Yosemite. I have installed the PPDs and they work in Illustrator and InDesign but do not work in Acrobat.
First, I am a designer at a screen printing shop and have been printing separations on a daily basis for 3 years. I understand how it works. I was working on a PC with CS 5.5. Typical workflow was to design in Illustrator, Print to PDF, open the PDF in Acrobat, save as EPS. EPS was the preferred method since I print the transparencies from Illustrator, and since Illustrator can only open one page of a PDF at a time, I saved the PDF as EPS so that ever spot color got it’s own EPS file. From there, I created a new AI file, put all EPS files on different art boards and printed.
Now I am on a Mac with Yosemite and CC 2014. I know the PDF workflow changed in Snow Leopard. You now have to print to a PostScript file and Distill, which then gives me the PDF i can open w Acrobat and save to EPS as usual.
But, I decided to really dig into Acrobat 11 since it has all the Ink Manager and Preflight features. My preferred workflow would be creation in AI, save a PDF, then use all of Acrobats features for the final check and separations. The Acrobat manual says on page 316:
“Print separations
1. Choose File > Print, and choose a printer.
2. Choose an option from the Comments and Forms menu.
3. Choose print range and page handling options.
4. Click Advanced.
5. If you created a custom printer settings file with the appropriate separation settings, choose it from the Settings menu at the top of the
Advanced Print Setup dialog box.
6. Select Output on the left, and choose an option from the Color menu:
Choose Separations if the PPD doesn’t support in-RIP separations.
12. Click PostScript Options on the left, and select settings as needed. Click OK to close the dialog box, and then click OK again to print the separations.”
The only option I have in the print dialog is my desktop printer.
I have installed the PPDs, which brings me to another problem.
On this forum
https://forums.adobe.com/message/6735474#6735474
the gives the link
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=141
which is the adobe.sit.hqx file that contains 5 files with no file extension. Per the “Read Me” instructions, I have placed the “Acrobat Distiller (no file extension)” file in the
Library/Printers: PPDs: Contents: Resources: folder.
It works with Illustrator, and is not really and issue.
-The file is a 17KB file with no extension that was last modified on 9/9/2001.
Following another page
http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/multi/save-as-pdf-options-not.html#main_InstallAcroPPD
it give the link
Acrobat 9 PPD
which is the ADPDF9.PPD file, a 29 KB PPD file last modified on 12/8/2014.
Just to test it out, I placed both files in the
Library/Printers: PPDs: Contents: Resources: folder. Both are selectable from Illustrator when printing a PostScript file and both seem to work. I see no real difference between them.
I also created the PPDs file in the Presets folder of InDesign and can get separations from there as well.
But, I do not have the PostScript or any other print option from the Acrobat print dialog except for my desktop printer.
SO,
1) Is there somewhere else I need to place the PPDs for Acrobat to see it? The manual states I should be able to print the separations from the Print Dialog but its not available.
2) What is the difference between the “Acrobat Distiller” file and the “ADPDF9.PPD” files? Different size, different dates, but no obvious difference in output.
3) I sometimes print halftone jobs through AccuRip. I have gotten pretty good at manual spot color transparency gradients within illustrator, where I create complex gradients using only a spot color and a gradient with 100% transparency on one end and 0% on the other. But if I have many colors in it, I have to print separations through PotsScript and then Distill it, which flattens all transparency on the separated file. The result is a separation with a placed image gradient with a clipping mask instead of a true vector gradient. I know it has to be flattened when it’s ripped anyway, but I would like for it to ONLY get flattened as it passed through the rip on its way to the transparency, and not during the Distiller separation which then is placed back in AI for printing. Is there any way to do this on a Mac which MUST be printed to PostScript and Distilled?
Thanks

Answer 1

“I’ll never give you a job to print.”
Lead with an insult, good start.
You know, I read your comment, and the link, right before I went to bed. I thought I would respond then, but thought I should sleep on it. Well I slept on it, and I’m actually MORE p***ed off today than  last night. I will try to keep this as professional as possible…
“Such an outdated time consuming workflow !!!”
No S**t (so much for professional). Which is why it’s unfortunate that Apple forced this workflow on people like me.
I asked SPECIFICALLY about color SEPARATIONS in the title of the post and throughout the post. The link you provided did not provide an answer to this. It explained how terrible “refrying” a PDF can be. And what was the solution it gave?
“Use EPS and not PostScript!”
Strange. it seems that is the EXACT workflow I listed! To quote myself;
“Typical workflow was to design in Illustrator, Print to PDF, open the PDF in Acrobat, save as EPS”
That was on a PC, where Print to PDF is still an option. The design is made in Illustrator with Spot Colors, all overprints are set, because a human will be lining up the screens to print by hand, and you need about .5 - 1 point of “play” for when the screen moves so abutting colors will not have a gap of shirt color between them. I can then use all of the functionality of the AI print dialog box and print the SEPARATIONS to a PDF file, and the PDF is then split to separate EPS files for easier control.
Apple in it’s infinite wisdom has taken away this functionality. From AI, my 2 listed printers are my desktop printer and an Adobe PostScript file. Remember, I am SEPARATING the artwork to be printed on vellums that will be used to burn a screen. If I leave my desktop printer active, I can select “Setup”, where i am brought to the system print dialog box, where if I select “Adobe PDF” or “Save as PDF”, I get the message from Illustrator that “The Save as PDF option in the Printer dialog box are not supported”.
So, if I change the Printer to “Adobe Postscript file”, the “Setup” box is greyed out. If I simple  “Save As” and choose PDF, I do not have the option to SEPARATE colors. Do you see the dilemma now? Apple remove the functionality I have on a PC, so my SEPARATIONS can not be saved directly to a PDF, but MUST me “printed” to a Post Script file, which then MUST be distilled to get a PDF of SEPARATIONS.
Which brings me back to the whole point of my post.
““Such an outdated time consuming workflow !!!”
Right, which is why I’m trying to avoid it. In reality, the entire process only involves 1 extra step over the PC workflow, and the Distill process literally takes a few seconds. But, I don’t want to Distill for all the reasons listed in the link you provided. And if i follow the advice of the link, saving to EPS, I DO NOT have the option of SEPARATIONS. Which is why I’m trying to save a PDF from AI, the use all the functionality of Acrobat Pro to SEPARATE my colors. Again, the manual to Acrobat says I can print my SEPARATIONS to a file, but I only have the option to print to my desktop printer from the Acrobat Print Dialog box, even though I have DO have other options in AI and InDesign.
So, great Adobe MVP, can you answer my original questions?
1- why do I not have the option to print to a file in Acrobat Pro?
2- What is the difference between the “Acrobat Distiller” file and the “ADPDF9.PPD” files? Different size, different dates, but no obvious difference in output. (Not what I want to use, but on OSX post 10.6, I don’t really have a choice it seems)
3- Is there any way to print to a SEPARATION file on a Mac without printing to PostScript and then being Distilled?
I see your skills are:
“PDF forms, PDF multimedia, eBooks in PDF or in ePub format.
I'm an InDesign Digital Publishing Suite specialist too. I am also a trainer and the webmaster of abracadabraPDF.net, the only French web site dedicated to PDF and Acrobat.”
Good for you. Have you EVER had to print separations for a t-shirt? Have you ever had to consider that a person will be physically pushing the ink through a screen, so you must consider the thickness of the ink, how that will interact with the mesh of the screen, which determines the LPI the halftones are printed at, which determines how fine your gradients should be? Because I do it everyday. So your whole “I’ll never give you a job” thing is especially infuriating, and pretty unprofessional.
So not only have you totally ignored all my questions, you insulted me and given me a link that ALSO answers none of my questions. I am also assuming, though I could be wrong, that you marked your answer as correct int he AcrobatUsers forums. Well guess what? Even with you MVP badge, you are NOT correct. At least not for what I’m asking.
If I ever need an eBook, PDF form, ePub or Multimedia PDF done, maybe I’ll use you. But, I would never hire you for color separations for t-shirt printing.