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Paolo T
Known Participant
November 14, 2009
Answered

PDF files with wrong colors

  • November 14, 2009
  • 1 reply
  • 22082 views

Hi All,

I apologize if this has already been discussed, but I probably cannot guess the right search string to find the relevant thread.

I've recently upgraded from FM6 Mac to FM9 Win. My old FM6 documents have two kinds of problems in FM9:

1) replaced fonts horizontally scaled to 80%

2) colors looking good on the display, but bad when converted to PDF

As for issue #1, I couldn't do other than editing all the paragraph styles. But eventually I could solve it in a way or the other.

But issue #2, I cannot seem to come to an end with it. The original color was a Pantone swatch, that I can also find in the Win version of FM. In fact, when opening the FM file, it looks at it used to do on the Mac.

However, either I save as PDF from the File > Save to PDF menu command, or print a file using the PDF driver (with the Press Quality selected), the resulting color is wrong. What used to be a Grey-Blue Pantone 191-7, is now some sort of Cyan. Tones change slightly whether I convert using the Print > Do not save file trick, or use Acrobat Distiller 8 on the Mac with different settings; but the original color is never reproduced.

Oddly, an EPS file in the same FM file looks perfectly good - the original color is there. What a contrast with the oddly-colored text and lines in the remaining parts of the document!

Maybe someone has already gone through this issue, and has a solution for me. I'm literally loosing my sleep to try to solve this issue.

Thank you in advance!

Paolo

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Be.eM

    Bernd,

    You are right, this Pantone is saved correctly with Save as PDF.

    Unfortunatly, by Saving as PDF I see there are some problems (dirty characters in the EPS, as you might not notice not having the original EPS file), and lines thinner than in the original.

    If you Print (either letting FM9 generate a PDF, or a PS file then processed by Acrobat 8), you'll see the lines are fine, but the color is wrong again.

    I would love to have both things done right! :-)

    Paolo


    Paolo Tramannoni wrote:


    If you Print (either letting FM9 generate a PDF, or a PS file then processed by Acrobat 8), you'll see the lines are fine, but the color is wrong again.

    Paolo,

    printing (instead of saving) always writes FM spot colors as RGB (while spot colors from EPS files are written correctly). This is the way Windows and the Win PS driver work and always worked. This is no bug… as long as you don't call Windows a bug ;-)

    For getting Pantone colors from FM objects, you have to use the "Save as PDF" route.

    Bernd

    1 reply

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    Anonymous
    November 14, 2009

    Paolo, let us know what version of FM (including the "pxxx" numbers as shown in Help > About). if you aren't using ver 9.0.3 (aka 9.0p250) then update your FM; each update has to be installed in sequence, p237 and p250.

    For the font scaling, what fonts are you using? There are significant differences between FM6 vs. FM9 and Mac vs. Win as far as font handling.

    edit: search the forums for the string "convert CMYK colors to RGB" or something similar, you'll find threads such as this one:

    http://forums.adobe.com/message/2028717#2028717

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    Paolo TAuthor
    Known Participant
    November 14, 2009

    Sheila, thank you very much for your answer. I'm using FM version 9.0 p250. Judging from the fact that FM doesn't find any new updates, I guess this is the latest one, despite Adobe's web site citing a version 9.03.

    The fonts I used the most in my old documents (sigh - several thousand pages, plus the various translations) were Minion and Frutiger. I'm replacing the first one with Minion Pro, and the second one with Myriad Pro (may St. Frutiger forgive me). I know there were changes from Minion to Minion Pro, but I didn't expect to see such a radical change.

    As for the color, I actually tried several solutions after reading these and other forums. But, as the attached pics should show, with no success at all. I wonder if I missed some passage, but I've been repeatedly trying everything since several days. Maybe giving a look to the examples might let you immediately see what I'm doing wrong?

    - "SaveAsPDF_PressQuality_ConvToRGB" was created with File > Save as PDF > Convert CMYK to RGB checked.

    - "Print_PDF_PressQuality_NoPSFile" was created with File > Print > Print to file unchecked (PDF file generated by FM).

    - "Print_PDF_PSfile_MacAcro8_PressQuality" was created with File > Print > Print to file checked; the resulting PS files was processed with Distiller 8 on the Mac side, with the Press Quality setup selected.

    None of them is the expected result. I'm scratching my head so hard, that it is starting to bleed.

    Paolo

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    Paolo TAuthor
    Known Participant
    November 14, 2009

    I did another try - again: replacing the original Pantone process color, with a web-compliant spot RGB color. I went to the Edit > Color > Definitions dialog, and told FM to replace the color. Then printed to a PS file and converted with Distiller 8. This new result is no better than the olders.

    Paolo

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