Images not displaying in PDF's made from Pages

I would really like to understand this kind of things. Other people have also had problems with exported PDFs. I have never seen the problem myself however.

How did you generate the file? Print to PDF or Print to PDF/X?

What were the image sources? Were they created in an external application?

Has anyone figured this out?

I have the same problem. I've created a brochure in Pages, but when I printed (or exported) to pdf, and sent the pdf to be printed at a graphics shop, the printer could not see the images in Acrobat Reader. They look fine on my computer, but they are entirely black on his desktop. How can I send something to a printer from Pages? Is there a way to export as a tiff? When I try to open the pdf in photoshop the same thing occurs!

This is a huge problem, and a great limitation in using pages.

Please help!

Thanks.

Someone may perhaps figure it out, if someone answers the questions in my post above.

I had problems with Pages 2 a few times with particular images (scanned photos imported after editing with GIMP, I think) not showing up correctly in Adobe Reader (Preview was fine) – but only when the PDF had been exported from Pages using one of the many settings available for PDF making. On another export setting the same image would show up OK.

It wasn't consistent: other images prepared the same way as the problem image were fine, and the export settings (Better in the first case, Best in the second) where problems occurred were different.

My guess had been that certain photos were compressed by Pages/OSX in a way that was problematic for Adobe, but the instance where the Best setting was used seemed to bely that, since presumably under Best the images are not modified.

In each case I was able to export the PDF a different way - using the ColorSync filters - getting pretty much the same compressed size but with no problems with the images.

So, I always make sure I test my PDFs on different computers with versions of Adobe Reader before sending them out, either to a printer or for posting on a website. But that's only happened to me twice: usually there's no problem.

The other thing that has caused a problem with the printer (opening my PDF in InDesign) was a photo upon which I had multiple transparent layers of overlapping text. It was easily sorted by using a single layer. But others have had problems with layers/transparencies rendered in PDFs in Pages in the past.

There are many ways to export as a PDF or another image format, though. Open Applications/Utilities/ColorSync and look in the Help menu. Also in Preview, if you have Leopard. The Save As... menu in Preview 4.0 gives the following options, as well as containing all the ColorSync filters if you choose Format: PDF -

Format: GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, Microsoft BMP, OpenEXR, PDF, Photoshop, PICT, PNG, SGI, TGA, TIFF

So yes, there is a way to send the PDF as a TIFF if you really want to.

Rhys

Thanks for the tips. I was able to make a pdf in ColorSync that was readable by the printer. So it is definitely a conflict between Pages and Adobe Acrobat. Still don't understand why, but the work-around worked and got me out of a jam.
Thanks!

I am having the same issue...except it is actually a text box that is not showing up! Can either of you tell me how to use the colorsync filters you mention to make a readable pdf for pc users?
Thanks

I do not have the problem and cannot guarantee the solution, but as no one else has answered yet:

Create a PDF from either Print (to PDF) or Print (to PDF/x). Right click (ctrl-click) on the PDF File and choose Open With > ColorSync Utility.

In ColorSync Utility, try the filters in the bottom left corner of the window. After each filter, click on the Apply button and then, if you like the result, go to Save As... and give the file a new name.

You can also try to print to PostScript from Pages, and then open the file in Preview (which converts it to PDF).

Experiment with those methods, and see if you find one that works for you.

You can also try creating your own filters, but there I do not even know which parameters to start with.

Robin Wolf wrote:
I am having the same issue...except it is actually a text box that is not showing up! Can either of you tell me how to use the colorsync filters you mention to make a readable pdf for pc users?
Thanks

I haven't been back to this forum for a while ...

Magnus's suggestions are good ones, particularly trying the Post Script conversion if the ColorSync filters don't do the trick. I don't have too much experience creating my own filters in ColorSync, but if you look in its Help menu, and do some searching here and on Google you'll find specific advice.

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In the past few days I've had a similar problem, where the printer was not able to read a photo copied into Pages 3 on Leopard after I had added one of the Picture Frame border options (the torn out effect, at about 50% scale). He was using Adobe Reader on a PC - the PDF had looked perfect on Adobe Reader on my MacBook. The border itself was showing up on his screen without the image, which was blank.

There was no time for experimenting to find a solution so I just changed the border on the image to a normal black line and it became perfectly readable.

Rhys