I'm trying to convert a PDF v1.6 to the X-3 standard (so downgrading it to v1.3, which doesn't support transparencies) using the SWOP profile in Preflight named "Convert to PDF/X-3 (SWOP)" which checks for transparencies and should flatten them automatically with the "Flatten transparencies" fix as you can see here:
After creating the new file the Results view in Preflight says that the only thing that doesn't meet the X-3 standard is transparencies, and then lists 1448 elements as transparent (see attached the Results generated as a PDF with images in the report compressed so I could attach it here) although I've successfully run the whole document through the Flattener Preview before attempting to convert to X-3, flattening the few images that actually had transparent backgrounds and later checking every page and seeing, that Flattener Preview didn't see transparencies anywhere on them (Basically I checked on every page, that Highlight could not be set to "Transparent Objects" nor any other option in Flattener Preview. I assume this means that there's nothing to highlight - no transparency on the page, because before flattening the few pages with transparency I was able to select "Transparent Objects" highlight on these pages).
I believe that the flattener worked and that these are false positives, because there's nothing transparent about any of these objects in the document. But sadly I can't generate an X-3 compliant document because of these false positives.
I'd appreciate your help.
@JR Boulay I have good news 😃 I managed to get rid of practically all of the transparency errors in the X-3 conversion! Now only 6 matches instead of 895.
This is thanks to your recommendation to use overprint. I ran the fix called "Set black text to overprint" (under Preflight - Acrobat Pro DC 2015 Profiles - wrench button - Color, spaces, spot colors, inks) as the first step in Acrobat DC right before color conversion. (I also tried it after color conversion, but it created a greyscale copy of each illustration for some reason. I wanted to keep all images in the ICC profile specified in color conversion.)
After that I did color conversion, flattening, DPI reduction of images and conversion to X-3 just like I've done before, so the overprint fix is what made the difference.
I suspect that the remaining 6 matches are caused by the background image and a page number box being fully covered by a full-page illustration. I will try making a new master page for this specific page that has no background image and no page number box (even though the box is empty on that page) and repeat the rest of the steps.
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