'Convert CMYK Colors to RGB' still runs havoc in 9! (Plus a PDF version problem)

Report · Jun 10, 2009

This post is to warn people about severe issues, and how to avoid them. Issues with the CMYK color setting in FM9.x have been reported here earlier, such as:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/1237696#1237696

http://forums.adobe.com/message/1237852#1237852

http://forums.adobe.com/message/1237165#1237165

However, I do not think this issue has been warned about anywhere near as much as it should have. And, as usual, Adobe is silent (they should have a big poster on their site warning about this issue! And they have even claimed that patches have "solved" the issues with CMYK).

Just recently, while experimenting with FM9 again, I had extreme problems, which, at first, seemed totally unrelated to this CMYK setting. But after having struggled extremely hard for many many many hours, I finally found out. Now is the time to inform others:

First a note about versions: FrameMaker 9.0p237, Acrobat Distiller 9.1, XP SP2

It looks perfectly okay on screen in FrameMaker, exactly as in FM8. But when saved as pdf, several things are "corrupted". Examples: no kerning after the letter 'T', such as the word 'Text'. Dotted leader for a right aligned tab disappears. Some objects from the master pages, such as a logo, become enclosed in a rectangle (a border of the frame/object), but it only happens on *some* body pages, whereas other body pages using the same master page are ok!!? Equations are formatted differently from the way they should, with the wrong font for number, etcetera.

Solutions:

1. When 'Save as PDF...', untick 'Convert CMYK Colors to RGB' in PDF Setup. Same setting is in the file's 'Format > Document > PDF Setup...'

A drawback with this method is that, as of Acrobat Distiller v9, it does not seem to respect the pdf version specified in the PDF job Options! I get PDF 1.6 with this method, despite my job option specifies version 1.5. (This happens also with FrameMaker 8 if Acrobat is v9.) So you *have* to optimize it in Acrobat in order to get a web friendly PDF (PDF 1.4 or 1.5).

or

2. Print to 'Adobe PDF'.

In this latter case, you can set the same 'PDF Setup' settings under the button 'Setup...', EXCEPT that there is no tick box for 'Convert CMYK Colors to RGB', and it does not matter what setting you have chosen in the file's 'Format > Document > PDF Setup...', it will be RGB conversion in any case. Make sure that after you exit the setting, the tick box for 'Print to File' is NOT ticked! This method respects the pdf version specified in the PDF job Options! I get PDF 1.5, which is what my job option specifies.

(For some reason, Acrobat/Reader does not render these two PDFs exactly the same, except in extreme magnification! Maybe it has to do with the different PDF versions of the files.)

In either case, the solution actually solves ALL problems I listed! Despite it seems to have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with colors! Some day in the distant future, CMYK might actually work! But, for myself, I would prefer a proper color management instead...

Best Regards,

/Harald

Report · Jul 14, 2009

Oops!! Not until now I discover that under 'Solutions' I happened to write 'untick' where it should be 'tick'! I.e, colors SHOULD be converted to RGB in order to circumvent the problems! I.e it runs havoc in v9 when CMYK colors are NOT converted to RGB! Don't know how I came to write the opposite, but probably I started out by describing the situation where the problems are seen rather than describing how to avoid them.

Equally strange is that nobody corrected me, but perhaps the mistake was so obvious? (But whether you see problems or not might depend on what fonts you use. So, under certain special circumstances, CMYK might actually work without these reported problems.)

I am also a bit surprised that others haven't reported the issue that the PDF version set in PDF job Options isn't respected when using 'Save As PDF' and Acrobat 9? (Or maybe someone has, but I have missed it.)