Packaging .AI file to PDF ready for printer - MAC Tiger user

Hallo, I need some help please about sending artwork to printer who is using a FUJI colour Laser printer. (like most printers who are using laser here they reply to me to simply send them PDF, when I ask about embedded profiles or not to embed they tend to look at me blankly and say just send them a proof for me to compare colours)?!?!?!?
So, Please could someone confirm wether or not I have applied the best setting in my PDF conversions: I am running CS3 creative suite and acrobat version 8.0. thanks.
When you get the PDF options window on the " save Adobe pdf", On the first GENERAL page I set this to PDF/x-1a, (but why is there also the standard tab where I can do the same thing? so I set this also to PDF/x-1a. The compatibility goes to acrobat 4.0.
I now go to OUTPUT. here I set the following:
Colour conversion -- convert to destination preserve numbers
Destination (since this is laser I set it to -- Generic cmyk profile
Profile inclusion policy is grayed out.
In PDF/X box under output intent profile name is set to Generic cmyk, and that is all.
Before i did all this my global colour settings management policy is set to FOGRA27 (iso 12647-2:2004) and adobe RGB 1998 for the photos from photoshop cs3 of course. I then convert the document to the generic cmyk profile before packaging it into PDF and assigning these settings.
I have searched everywhere for detailed tutorials about precisely how to pakage your work for an outside printer, but the web is silent when it comes to laser printing. I would love to know if there are any resources which cover all the issues of preparing your artwork for print since this side of the job is a minefield of complicated presets and flattening and font changing techniques.
I am a memeber of Lynda.com and while they are excellent teachings and professional, I have unfortunately not been able to learn the gritty detailsof printing from them, only the basics.
I appreciate the person who takes the time to reply to this.
I thank you.
Kind regards
Chris Watts

Your settings should do the job adequately, but there is a much simpler and more reliable method. Get Acrobat Professional. Generate your artwork in AI and save it as an .eps file. Then use Acrobat Distiller to generate the .pdf file. The advantages are that AD produces MUCH smaller file sizes, much better .pdf files and has a number of presets from which to choose, depending on the intended purpose of the file.
Another hint as far as quality control is concerned - you should be working in the CMYK color space in Photoshop, if you are going to produce CMYK images in the .pdf file. CMYK is a narrower color space than RGB, so there is often a color shift upon conversion. You may have the image exactly the way you want it, as an RGB, but be disappointed in the printed version because of the shift in color during conversion. If you work in CMYK, you can adjust it to get the results you want.

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Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger

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Packaging .AI file to PDF ready for printer - MAC Tiger user

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