Export PDF that does not activate "Enhance thin lines" when opened in Acrobat
- September 21, 2023
- 2 replies
- 1558 views
Hi,
The quality of an image created in Illustrator is great when saved as a PDF. When such an PDF is opened in Adobe Acrobat, however, thin lines are shown as thick (see attachment 1, while it is supposed to look like attachment 2). This is due to a pre-set feature of Acrobat called "Enhance thin lines". One can turn it off in Acrobat (and then the lines will be shown as originally drawn in illustrator), but most people don't know about this feature, resulting in a situation where whomever opens your PDF has a drastically different visual experience than what was intended (and drawn in illustrator).
Since exporting or printing PDFs from illustrator will trigger the "Enhance thin lines" in Acrobat a workaround is needed. Exporting the image as a PNG results in decent quality and thin lines (see attachment 2), but still a significant loss of quality when viewed in Acrobat (see difference in attachments 3 and 4).
I have tried the following solutions without success:
1. Export / print PDF from illustrator
2. Export PNG from illustrator --> converting to PDF through AI and PS
3. Opening AI-file in PS and saving as PDF
Does anybody have any ideas? It would be a godsend.
Sincerely,
Bendik
PS.
Ideally Adobe should make it a choice to restrict ones PDF from triggering "Enhance thin lines" in Acrobat when exported through Illustrator. Alternatively, they could just change the default in Acrobat (I bet people would generally want to see images the way they where intended).
