since numbers 3.1 rendering problem in output

I don't print much, so I'm probably not going to get you much closer to a solution, however I do wonder whether exporting to PDF also has the same issue?

This does sound like the same problem I had. My only solution was to save the document in Numbers '09 (Numbers 2.3) format, and print from there. Same document but printing quality much better.

By the way, if you have not done so, you can provide feedback to the Numbers team. In the Numbers application, it is the third menu item under the Numbers command bar. (Apple seems to no longer monitor these discussion groups).

My personal hypothesis is that this originates in the attempt to have Numbers documents work under iOS as well as MacOS---that is, it comes out of some code brought over from the iOS side. Just a guess, though.

I have the same problem. I have returned to using Numbers 2.3.

One thing to add: the identical font (same size, even) prints crisply on the same page as badly-rendered tables if the text is in a text box. So, clearly it's nothing to do with the font or our sytsems (mine is rMacBook Pro 2012). The problem resides in Numbers itself. Unfortunately, this renders Numbers appalingly useless.

Could you post screen shots of well-rendered and poorly-rendered PDFs displayed at high zoom? PDFs from 2.3 and 3.1?

Jerry

I think you've misunderstood. The pdfs look fine onscreen. But the print doesn't match.

The top is a photo of the printout, the bottom is the screen grab of the same file in Preview. I made the pdf from Numbers 3.1.

Although the photo isn't great, and the forum limits the size of the image (click to open a bigger version), it's pretty clear that the text surrounded by (grey) lines (right), which is text in a table, looks jagged compared to the text in the text box (left). Check out "aliqua" to see the difference. Also, the grey lines are light blue in print. (These grey lines print as grey in Numbers 2.x).

If this is would be helpful if I spent more time producing a better image, let me know. I'll break out the scanner. But if this isn't going to help solve the problem, then I'm done wasting any more time on Numbers 3.

Message was edited by: preludio to add more details.

P,

If I'm reading you correctly, the screen shot shows a PDF in Preview and a photo of a Printout from PDF displayed in Preview. Or, is the printout made directly from Numbers?

I don't see much difference withinin the PDF, but I do see that the font is visibly bolder in the Table than in the Text Box in the printout.

Thanks for the extra explanation. I'm going to try to duplicate on my system.

Jerry

The image is composed of:

photo of a printout from Preview of the pdf

a screen grab of how the pdf displays in Preview

(FWIW, a printout from Numbers is identical to a printout from Preview.)

The font appears bolder, but when you look at it in real life, it's visibly jagged. It may not be so obvious to others, but I'm a graphic designer and am cursed with seeing such problems! Open the image in a new tab and you'll get the bigger version I uploaded.

(Sorry for the crappy photo. When I have time I'll make a better demo page and scan it.)

The bluel-shifted grey is another hint that something is awry. The entire color space of the table is screwy (and I'm leaning toward agreeing with Jeffrey Folinus above in that this is tied into the webification or iOS-ification of iWork. Changing from CMYK to RGB, perhaps?

P.

I'll bow out of this discussion since I don't have the descriminating eye needed. I printed to PDF in '09 and '13 versions of Numbers. The '09 version was an Export from the '13 version. PDFs look identical on my screen at as high a magnification I can use. I tested with Helvetica Regular 16 point with 3pt borders on the text box and table cell.

The Print Preview in Numbers '13 is very poor in that it represents the box and cell so differently.

I would think that going from PDF to paper would be a system issue, not a Numbers issue.

Sorry I couldn't help.

Jerry

Perhaps you can see the problem in this version. This is a PRINTING problem. You cannot see it on screen in the pdf.

This is a single Numbers document, printed directly from Numbers (3.1). The font is identical in both lines. The box color is identical (black) and the width of the line is identical (0.5 pt). It was printed on an HP Color LaserJet CP2025.

The upper text is jagged. It may look fine on your screen, but it's not.

This is very obvious if you look at the larger image that is linked to the image above. (Remember, a computer screen is only 72 dpi and this image is optimized for that. Printed text is much higher resolution. So, to get an accurate view on your screen of how jagged the text is when printed, you need to look at it magnified. Right-click on the image above to open the image in a new tab, and you should get the full size.)

Also, the because the upper image is lower resolution (jaggies), the narrow line cannot print accurately. Thus, it appears blueish. When you look at the full-size image, you can see how jagged the line is and the mix of dots (red and blue, predominantly) that was output by the printer. In contrast, the lower text box is smooth and black.

I don't know where the problem lies, but I have not experienced anything like this on any other program I currently use. It's a postscript printer, and I suspect that something's gone wrong in the postscript output associated with tables and the printer is printing the screen view, not the higher resolution printer data. But that's just a guess. And as far as I know, it's not something anyone other than Apple can fix.

And, of course, since you can't see this problem on screen in the pdf, no matter how much you "zoom" in, you won't know if your files will print badly until you test it. Or, worse, your client does.

Bummer.

Pre,

Test in Pages '13 and see if it behaves the same. I suspect that it will. Then post in the Pages for Mac discussions and reference the rendering problem. Peter Breis, a publishing expert like yourself will likely respond and may already have seen this. You can refer him to this thread.

Jerry