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Participating Frequently
November 24, 2017
Answered

Knockout group blending modes not exporting as PDF correctely

  • November 24, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 5508 views

I use white shapes set to multiply inside a group with the knockout group option selected to create things like text shadows a lot, but it doesn't export to a PDF correctly:

The first image is how it appears inside Illustrator, the second in a PDF. Is there a way to correct this?

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Correct answer Ton Frederiks

Ok yes it does look correct in Acrobat. However, Acrobat is incredibly slow and this is obviously not ideal for sending things to clients; I don't know what software they are using. What does this look like on Windows?

Is there no universal solution other than .jpeg?

Thanks


If it's for preview, select the problem and it's background and use Object > Flatten Transparency with the slider to 100 vectors.

2 replies

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 24, 2017

Did any of the answers solve your problem?

If so, mark one as correct.

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 24, 2017

When working with knockout groups in Illustrator in order to judge what happens, you should better set View > Preview on CPU.

What happens if you do?

Also: please show the appearance panel.

Edit: my guess is that white multiply is treated like white overprint in export and maybe deleted. But would need to see the appearance stack.

Participating Frequently
November 24, 2017

It looks exactly the same when previewing on CPU, here's the appearance stack:

Thanks

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 24, 2017

Thank you.

Instead of 100% multiply you could set the white to 0% Normal. This should work.