Transparency in Preview / Indesign / PDF

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Level 1

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Transparency in Preview / Indesign / PDF

I have a question concerning the Preview App.

I was exporting a PDF for print from Adobe Indesign. When opening in the Preview App I am seeing color-changes in the transparent areas of the embedded TIFFs. When opening the same document in Adobe Acrobat (Reader & Pro) I do not see any color-changes in the transparent areas.

Is this a bug in the Preview App or is something in the export-/ or color-settings of Indesign not the way it should be?

This is how the document looks in Preview:

This is how the document looks in Adobe Acrobat:

If someone has an idea what this is about, it would be a great help to know...

Thanks in advance!

S

macbook

Posted on Sep 9, 2018 10:36 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,290 points

Sep 10, 2018 6:20 AM in response to aeiou112358

Documents created in Adobe products are best able to reflect the most current PDF features, and PDF transparency requires PDF v1.5 or later. I would at minimum, view these PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC.

Apple's Preview product is stuck at PDF v1.3 (some v1.4 on export/annotation), and although it will display PDF versions through 1.7, it will do so with diminished capacity for specific features required by those versions, and not implemented in Preview.

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

685,221 points

Sep 10, 2018 6:22 AM in response to aeiou112358

Since you exported it from an Adobe product, using an Adobe product to view it will probably produce better results because the Adobe products use the same standards. Not necessarily a Preview defect.

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Answer 3

aeiou112358 Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 10, 2018 4:11 AM in response to Eric Root

Thanks for your response!

I was suspecting that an error in displaying the data in Preview could point to some kind of color-profile problem inside the Indesign-file. I was concerned that something in the printing-file could be improved so that even Preview could be showing the print-data correctly.

I'm usually sending my print-data for confirmation to the clients, so they are mostly using "Preview", because it's convenient, and it's just difficult to explain that a visual error in the preview will not be printed on paper. Guess I will send jpegs together with the PDF from now...

Anyway: thanks for your help, I'm more relaxed about the data now.

Cheers, S

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Answer 4

aeiou112358 Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 10, 2018 6:22 AM in response to VikingOSX

That's a perfect detailed explanation, many thanks, VikingOSX! Your explanation gives me exactly the kind of technical details that I'll need to explain the viewing-errors to my clients.

Thanks again!! Very helpful!!

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Answer 5

Eric Root

Level 10

685,221 points

Sep 10, 2018 5:35 AM in response to aeiou112358

You are welcome.

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Transparency in Preview / Indesign / PDF

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