color blocks appear invisible in acrobat but show in other PDF readers

[Joseph27359265jhmt]

I'm using files created by someone else in InDesign and exported to both single-page view and spread (double page) view. Some color fields simply do not appear in either version of the export, other color fields only appear in the spread view. All colors are visible when I open the same file in Mac Preview. This is most noticeable when the designer has placed white text over a color block; when the color is missing the text is invisible.

The designer cannot duplicate this error with their version of Acrobat. We are using identical versions of Acrobat: 2025.001.20476

I'm using an Apple M1 Pro 16-inch 2021 laptop. I recently updated my OS to sequoia 15.5 (24F74), but I've noticed this problem before I made the update, usually on files that are many years old.

I'm attaching screengrabs of this problem in two instances (filenames starting 1 and 2). There are slightly different elements missing from acrobat's page view vs spread view, but everything is visible in Mac Preview.

The problem is not limited to this file. See another instance in a different file (filenames 3) where again a color field is just missing.

Thank you for considering!

 

[MikelKlink]

Can you also share the PDF files? That way one can check which viewer(s) are correct if any. 

[Joseph27359265jhmt]

Thanks! Here they are:

[Joseph27359265jhmt]

Here are the extracted pages of each PDF number above, if that's also helpful!

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse · Accepted solution]

Check your Acrobat Preferences > Accessibility. Is "Replace Document Colors" checked? It shouldn't be.

[Joseph27359265jhmt]

That was it! Thanks so much for the secret tip!

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Glad to help. 🙂

[happy_child1322]

I’ve run into something similar before turned out it was related to how the transparency or overprint settings were handled in the PDF Mepco bill check. Acrobat can be picky with certain layer effects that Preview shows just fine. Might be worth checking those export settings in InDesign.