PDF/X-4:2008 in Adobe CS5.5+??

Question

Hi everyone,
I'm part of a german medium-sized company and we're about to bring in PDF/X-4 as our new standard in prepress. But our digital-print section is just able to process PDF v. 1.3 / 1.4 (Acrobat 4 / 5) flawlessly. So – my problem is, that in our Adobe Suite (we got some Macs with CS 5.5 and some allready upgraded to CS 6) there's just the PDF/X-4:2010 standard available as the last export function, which means that a PDF v. 1.6 (Acrobat 7) will be created, what implements potential sources of error in our print-section. We use to export directly out of InDesign. Is there a way to add the "old" PDF/X-4:2008 standard in InDesign CS 5.5 / CS 6, by any chance? Then we'd be able to create a PDF v 1.4 instead, but with the advantages of the X4-standard – instead of to writing a PDF/X-1a to gain a lower PDF-version than 1.6. :confused:
Thanks for prospective comments, I hope you're able to help me.
Greetings,
Ruwen2302

Answer 1

First and foremost - if your "digital print section" is only able to work with files that are 15 years(!!!) old, you REALLY REALLY REALLY need ot get them into this century!
Second, the PDF/X-4:2008 standard - which was completely replaced by PDF/X-4:2010, was also based on PDF 1.6.  So even if you were to create such a file, it would still be using PDF 1.5 and 1.6-based features and your existing solution would fail.
If you are going to use PDF/X-4 - which would be the correct modern solution for PDF processing - then you MUST upgrade your software and/or hardware to be PDF/X-4 compliant.   there is NO shortcut!