Skip to main content
Participant
October 2, 2018
Question

FrameMaker 2015 hash pattern conditional colors and PDF production issue

  • October 2, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 214 views

Hello fellow FrameMaker users! We recently started using FrameMaker 2015 (32-bit) and have run into a strange issue. Our once previously conditional tagging pattern to use bold for row coloring in FrameMaker 8 is now rendered as a cross-hash pattern in FrameMaker 2015. When we try to print the book showing the conditional colors, it is immensely slow. Adobe has recognized the issue as something to do with how the hash patterns are stored for production purposes. Did anyone else encounter this issue? Did you find any workarounds to print while showing the colors? Did you have to change how your colors work for this?

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    Matt-Tech Comm Tools
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    October 4, 2018

    Are you producing PDF using Print, or Save as PDF?

    If Save as PDF is slow, you'll likely find that creating a PS file via the Print option, and using the Adobe PDF print driver will be exponentially faster.

    Of course, after creating the PS file, you'll process that file using Acrobat Distiller...

    See http://techcommtools.com/framemaker-pdf-tips-and-tricks/ for a full list of options I use to produce my books, each with 100's of pages of screenshots, etc.

    -Matt

    -Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant
    Community Manager
    October 3, 2018

    This chance came, when background colors were introduced.

    To get the old effect, you would have to set up both color and background to the same color:

    However, please note, that this setting for a conditional tag would render "normal" text in blue on a blue background – which would make it unreadable. So it would be better to have a separate conditional for tables.