Black elements disappearing when opened on another computer.

[PotatoGraphick]

Hi guys,

I'm not entirely sure if this is an Illustrator question, as it relates to the PDF which is exported from Illustrator.

The problem I'm having is that an Illustrator document created on a specific machine one of my employees works on always has massive issues with the way it handles black elements. On that machine, it's fine. It looks fine in Illustrator, it looks fine on the PDF export, but if I open the file on MY computer, although it looks fine in Illustrator, all of the 100% black elements just magically disappear in the PDF. Even if I open a PDF file which has been exported from the original machine on my computer, same result, no black.

Both machines are running the same version of Acrobat and Illustrator.

I can't figure it out, but I deduce that it must be something to do with the way the original file is being set up. I've checked the overprint settings, blend settings, everything I can think of, I just can't figure this out.

This is an image of what the result looks like (the black in this image is only appearing where there is a mask for the image above it, you'll notice that the black in the barcode has also disappeared):

Anyone got any ideas?

TIA.

[sishamIAGD]

Are you able to provide a source file for us to look at to see if we can work out the issue..?

[PotatoGraphick]

Certainly, although I'm not sure you will be able to replicate the issue, at it seems to only happen between these 2 computers.

Links below:

AI: http://www.graphick.com.au/Test.ai

PDF: http://www.graphick.com.au/Test.pdf

This is one of the weirder things I've seen. I'm currently sitting on my laptop at home and the PDF file looks fine. It's ONLY on my work computer that it is just not rendering correctly and dropping anything black. The strange thing is it basically does this for any AI file created on my employees computer, it doesn't even matter which computer exports the PDF, if the file was created on that computer, I get this result, which is really disrupting our workflow.

[Monika Gause]

It might be the dreaded white box of transparence flattening:

https://indesignsecrets.com/eliminating-the-white-box-effect.php

You might want to also check the Yucky discolored box:

https://indesignsecrets.com/eliminating-ydb-yucky-discolored-box-syndrome.php

And some general transparency stuff:

http://67.227.198.33/~ghp/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Transparency_DesignGuide.pdf

[PotatoGraphick]

Thanks for that. I have had issues with transparency in the past, but this doesn't have any transparent elements in it.

I still haven't figured out what the issue is, all I can think is it's a setting about the way Acrobat Pro is handling blacks?

In another example of this issue, below are 2 images of the same PDF on the 2 different machines - Exactly the same PDF. The black in this is set to multiply.

[Anna Lander]

Are the black items placed on white ones?
Are you sure that they are ABOVE the white ones?
There might be that the white elements are placed above black ones and have Overprint Fill attribute.

If the file in AI has View option "Overprint Preview", you can see all elements fine there. But to see them well in Acrobat you need to set Output Preview mode.

Check pls the situation and tell if this suggestion has a reason.

[PotatoGraphick]

Negative, there are no elements at all sitting above the black. I've checked in overprint preview.

Thanks for the suggestion, that's not it though.

[PotatoGraphick]

Interestingly, I tried opening the file in the browser on my work computer from the above link, and in the browser view in Chrome, there is no issue, however downloading the file and opening it in Acrobat the issue comes back.

Is it possibly something to do with Adobe Acrobat?

[brittneyv20955540]

Just here to respond with I had the same problem. Works fine on my computer but not someone elses Acrobat. Haven't found a fix yet.

[Monika Gause]

WHat's in the file?

Transparency? Spot colors? Lots of objects? ...

[Anubhav M]

Hello @brittneyv20955540,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Would you mind sharing some more details, like the exact version of the OS/Illustrator, exact details of your workflow, a public link to a sample AI and PDF file after uploading to Dropbox/Google Drive/etc., and a screen recording of the problem (https://adobe.ly/3xJSuTi) so we can investigate this further?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Anubhav