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M
mackatdesign
Participating Frequently
November 27, 2012
Question

Acrobat Preview mode doesn't show PMS spot colors

  • November 27, 2012
  • 2 replies
  • 19643 views

Out of the blue, the preview mode in Acrobat 9 is showing PMS spot colors as black, CMYK colors show up fine. The actual pdf itself is fine. This happens when I make pdfs "High Quality" or "Press Quality" from Indesign 6. Curiously, it does not happen when I make a "Smallest File". However when I attach these pdfs to email, the spot colors appear black.

I've been using 9 for a long time and I've been using Indesign 6 for a few months now. I'm on a Mac Pro, OSX 10.6.8. I can't figure out if there is something that was unchecked or checked that is causing this problem to come up seemingly out of nowhere.

Any advice is much appreciated,

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

B
BlackInkCorp
Participant
March 11, 2013

I had the same issues. I have a letterhead designed in Illustrator with 3 spot colors. After saving the file as a pdf from illustrator, Mac Preview show the colors as black. I won't restate what has stated, but the issue according to my research is the lack of support of Lab Colors.

Now for an actual solution:

When you save as - pdf, change the standard from [Illustrator Default] to PDF/X-1a:2001. This allows you to see the spot colors in preview, etc. This should be sufficient for spot printing, and still allows for printing separations (I even checked myself).

Note: I had to uncheck CMYK when going to print the actual seps, but I could print the pantone spot separations just fine. In short: The good news is this seems to preserve the ability to view the colors in preview. The downside is that I think it is adding in CMYK equivalent information and that's why Preview is able to display it. I'm ok with that as long as I tell my printer to print via spot colors and not CMYK.

I hope this makes sense. I tried to explain it the best I could.

-Jason

T
Test Screen Name
Legend
November 27, 2012

Not entirely clear of the workflow, so let's see.

You design in InDesign and export.

Open that PDF in Acrobat - do you see the spot colours?

Or does it only happen after you email?

You say preview mode. Is this output preview?  So it's normally OK? But when you click on a single plate it shows as black?

Can you fill in the details...

M
mackatdesignAuthor
Participating Frequently
November 27, 2012

Yes, I design in Indesign6 and export to make a pdf. When I open the PDF, spot colors are there, everything fine. When I attach it to an email, the spot colors are black within my own email. Conversely and fortunately, the recipient does see the spot color when they get the email.

This also happens when I click on the pdf file on my hard drive to see it and the "preview" shows the spot colors in black.

Thanks!

Steve Werner
Community Expert
Steve WernerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 28, 2012

I'm using Mac OSX 10.6.8. I've read that Mountain Lion and CS6 have major compatibility issues, so I won't be upgrading my operating system anytime soon to try to fix this. This little glitch is nothing compared to what others have gone through w/OSX 10.8 and CS6.

I haven't read about anyone else w/this problem. It must be particular to the combo of my OS and CS6. Bummer.

Thanks again for your interest and help.


You're quite wrong. No major problems between Mountain Lion and CS6. This is misleading information.

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