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W
Walberg
Participant
May 15, 2020
Question

Acrobat DC changes document colors on some PDFs - how can I fix this?

  • May 15, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 8089 views

I am running Acrobat Standard DC, fully updated. For SOME PDFs, Acrobat changes the colors on the screen. I've given two examples below - the one on left is Adobe and on right SumatraPDF - the one on the right is correct. I did not create either of these. For the household inventory document, it was created using InDesign CS6 (Macintosh) according to the imbedded document decription.

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This started about a year ago. I have researched this problem but have not found a solution. I've done a repair and then reinstall of DC. In  Preferences/Accessibility Replace Document Colors is not checked. Below is a screen shot of my Color Management settings. I ahve not found a setting combination that changes anything. 

 

Any help or ideas would be appreciated. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    2 replies

    U
    Adobe Employee
    user9294671
    Adobe Employee
    May 19, 2020

    Hi,
    Thanks for reaching out to us. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
    For investigating the issue please share one such sample PDF file.

    Which machine configuration you are using?

     

    Thanks,

    Sweta Karn

    W
    WalbergAuthor
    Participant
    May 20, 2020

    Hello Sweta -

    Interestingly, there is no option to attach a PDF - only photos, video and code.  However, you can download the inventory PDF here: http://extension.msstate.edu/publications/publications/inventory-the-household

    If by machine configuration you mean operating system, I am running Windows 10 Pro. I previously posted the Acrobat version. 

    thank you.

    ls_rbls
    Community Expert
    ls_rblsCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 22, 2020

    Hi, 

     

    Since you mentioned about having two different  Acrobat Pro  products installed in the same machine, I am wondering if this is what is creating the the inconsistent color rendering issue.

     

    I can think of two ideas to try:

     

     

    Conversely, you can try running Acrobat Pro XI to run in compatibility mode for Windows 7 or 8 and test, and then leave Acrobat Standard as is but make it the default PDF handler/viewer in your MS Windows 10.

    ls_rbls
    Community Expert
    ls_rblsCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 16, 2020

    Hi,

     

    Are you opening this files directly in Acrobat or is there an export/import step that is skipped before opening these PDFs directly in Acrobat?

     

    I can think of the Accessibility Checker. Run a full report and then take note of the failed tests. Use these to customize a preflight profile using the Print Production Tool.

     

    However, you've mentioned that these files were created in CS6. Were these files already exported to PDf from inDesign? If no, what is the original file format of those files?  Are these jpegs that you're opening directly in Acrobat?

     

    If yes, looking at the first slide in the Preferences, there is another setting "Convert to PDF".

     

    Click on on that preference setting, then click once on the file type (in this example I assume is a .jpeg), then click on the "Edit settings..." button.

     

    See slide below:

     

     

     Select "Preserve embedded profiles" for both CMYK and Grayscale.

    W
    WalbergAuthor
    Participant
    May 18, 2020

    Thank you for the response. I am not well-versed in desktop publishing so might not understand some things being asked/stated. To answer your questions:

    I am opening the files directly in Adobe Acrobat Standard DC. The coreopsis flower example is actually a jpeg and the 'inventory' document example is a PDF. I did not create either of the files and so do not know the workflow used. Below is a screen shot of  properties/description for the inventory pdf. 

    I noticed that when a document is the wrong color, the the colors change this way (correct color to wrong): GREEN to PURPLE; YELLOW to PINK; BLUE to GREEN. Grey and red change much less and can be recognized for what they should be.

    I did the following to test where the problem lies. I opened the coreopsis flower jpeg with Acrobat DC - it was the wrong color - purple - as shown in previous post. I then saved it as a PDF with the settings you suggested, preserve CMYK and Grayscale. Then closed Acrobat and opened the PDF of the coreopsis - again, wrong color, as expected. Then I opened the coreopsis PDF with SumatraPDF - correct color! I open the PDF with Adobe Reader XI version 11.0.23 - correct color! That was a surprise since Reader incorrectly displays the Inventory document. 

    Then I tried everything but not using the 'preserve' setting  - no change in results. 

    An odd thing is that when I am in the create PDF dialog in Acrobat DC, the coreopsis have the correct color! See screen shot. 

     

    I tried the accessibility checker but think my version of DC does not have it like that. Included screen shot of my version of Acrobat. 

    I checked the sysinfo under Help. The only weird thing I saw is that it said I was running Windows 8 but I am running 10. There were some other things that might be a problem or indicative but not sure.  

    Thanks.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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