Loss of Illustration (.ai) quality when printing to PDF

Report · Jan 21, 2015

Hello - (This was cross-posted two days ago in the Acrobat forum)

We're running into some unpredictable problems when converting a structured (non-XML) FrameMaker file to PDF. Our images are created in Illustrator (CC), and inserted into FrameMaker (12) as a linked file. In Frame, the illustrations look perfectly fine.

On export to PDF (Acrobat XI), whether "Save as PDF", "Print" to postscript, or "Print" directly to PDF, some illustrations show up "fuzzy" on the screen. It's not the entire graphic, but seemingly random sections of the illustrations that are pixelated. The illustrations are layered, vector, non-outlined .AI files. When printed from the PDF output, the "fuzzy" sections are clear.

Adobe PDF settings (in Distiller XI) are optimized for online viewing.

If a problematic illustration is opened in Illustrator, the section that is pixelated in the PDF don't exist as overlays or layers in the AI file. When I say 'don't exist', I mean that if you select each and every layer individually, selections are never the entire pixelated area.

I have recreated the entire file in InDesign (to see if the problem is related to the Illustrator file, or the distilling process), and when I print to a PDF using the "Smallest File Size" PDF preset, the output is clear, both on screen and printed. A colleague has opened an older version (FM 10), and distilled with Distiller XI as well as Distiller X. From the older versions of Frame, the output is less pixelated, but there is still pixelation in the exact same locations.

Windows 7
Adobe Illustrator CC
Adobe FrameMaker 12 (Structured but not XML-based)
Acrobat Distiller XI

Thank you so much in advance for your help.

Report · Jan 26, 2015

You shouldn't be using a native .ai file, rather export a PDF form AI to use in FM. See Dov Isaacs explanation in this message: Re: FM 12.0.3 patch released

Report · Jan 26, 2015

The explanation I'm seeing is that for FM, it should be saved as .eps, not .pdf. But I also read that importing as .ai simply processes in the same manner as .pdf placement.

We aren't having issues with bloated files by saving as .ai with PDF compatibility turned on, however. And so I can't figure out why for the last 2 versions of FM/AI, this hasn't been an issue. The times we've had problems with the graphics, there have actually been overlays that didn't belong in the .ai file, and once removed, yielded perfectly clear illustrations in the output PDF file (exported from FM).

I'll check to see if we have the same issues with files saved as .PDF or .EPS, which was a work-around we have considered in the department, but one we wanted to avoid, since it means saving 2 of the same file, just in different formats (and may result in updating the .ai and forgetting the "save as" step to the other format, resulting in a linked file not updating).

Thanks, and I'll test in the morning when I have an illustrator and my copy of FrameMaker available to me.

Report · Jan 27, 2015

You can just use the PDF saved from AI (but FM then does convert this internally to EPS on import). Alternatively, AI can (re)import EPS, but if you are using any features like transparency, then it's best to keep it as a PDF so it gets flattened at the latest stage.

The native AI format contains a lot of additional info in a PDF-like structure, which is why FM often seems to import .ai files just fine. However, as Dov indicates, these are not quite the same and Murphy's Law dictates that it will bite when you least expect it.

Report · Jan 28, 2015

Having finally had a chance to test this, my results are as follow:

Importing as PDF results in the same pixilation as we get directly from AI.
Files saved as EPS and imported are clear when I output the FM file to pdf.

Because I didn't do the saving (I don't have Illustrator on my machine to be able to do it myself), the EPS ended up slightly larger in dimension, though. But that may just have been a workflow thing.

By the way, Arnis, I have not yet taken the opportunity to say thank you for your help. So, thank you.