Overprint attributes panel

[Debbie5C60]

Why does attributes panel show overprint box 'dash' (-) when no selections have overprint selected? Thought this was to indicate that overprint was present in the document? 

[Vanessa5FF5]

I am having the same issue. I created a logo from scratch in illustrator. No patterns, no imported elements, just shapes created in programme. When individual elements are selected no overprint shows in attributes. The minute I select all elements there is a greyed out hyphen for strokes. There are no strokes in the document. If I add strokes to it, the hyphen becomes a tick and I can deselect it. 
The issue is that I NEVER use overprint. It's always been a deafult off. Why is it auto switching on? This is a huge issue when printing and the working assumption is that overprinting is off. I don't alwasy create all the artowrk in illustrator, so when using a logo in InDesign it's important to know that the overprint is not on in Illustrator. 

[Monika Gause]

Did you read the complete thread?

Can you upload your document? (to Dropbox or the like and post a link here)

[Vanessa5FF5]

Yep, read the thread. I will need to recreate a file for you as I cannot upload client work due to NDAs. Will link something this afternoon.

[Vanessa5FF5]

Hi here you go, just did something quickly. Screen grabs show what I'm seeing, overprint outline is greayed out despite there being no outline. This is a clean, just created, document with no stray elements. 

[Ton Frederiks]

Looks like my example, I did not have a fill but got a dash, you don't have a stroke but got a dash.

I would not worry about it, if there is no stroke it cannot overprint.

[Vanessa5FF5]

I hear what you're saying but it does occur on fills, which will then print with opacity. It's a glitch that needs sorting.

[Ton Frederiks]

It is a weird problem, but as long as you cannot find an object that has overprint, I would not worry about it.

[Vanessa5FF5]

No, I don't spend over £50 a month for software that has glitches that could cause print defects. If I am sending a logo toolkit to a client I do not want to send a substandard product. I want to know that no overprint issues will spontaneously occur. This just does not give me confidence. 

[Ton Frederiks]

We cannot change anything, we are not working at Adobe, just volunteers to help on the forums.

I don't think this will cause a problem during print. Do a preflight in Acrobat and no Overprint problems are detected.

But it is confusing, there should not be any indation of overprint when there is none.

I reported it as a bug at UserVoice and you may want to vote and add more examples.

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-desktop-bugs/suggestions/47283329-no-ove...

[Vanessa5FF5]

Thanks for that. It does cause problems for print, a colleague had an issue which is why I noticed it in the first place. Thanks for you help though and for raising the ticket.

[Kurt Gold]

Well, probably it is just some kind of harmless laziness, whoever is responsible for it.

Let's do the most simple exercises:

- Draw a filled square, no stroke. What do you see in the Attributes palette? Dash (dulled) at Overprint Stroke option, right?

- Draw a stroked square, no fill. What is in the Attributes palette? Dash (dulled) at Overprint Fill option, right?

You can now give the filled square a stroke attribute. Then you can set the Overprint Stroke option to none. If you then remove the stroke attribute again, the dulled dash at Overprint Stroke appears again.

Same goes for the stroked square with the (unexpected) Overprint Fill option.

Now place a linked raster file. In the Links palette choose to embed it. What happens in the Attributes palette? The embedded raster image gets a dash at the faint Overprint Stroke option, right?

The behaviour is obviously not right, but all in all rather harmless.

[Vanessa5FF5]

Hi Kurt

Thanks for going over that. It's what we've already discussed. A collegue sent something to print and for her file it added overprint to the fill. So the print came back with an opacity in place that was not apparent when creating the logo in Illustrator and then importing it into InDesign. If you don't know that Illustrator is randomly adding overprint to files, you don't know to check view it in InDesign. In my opinion, and in my experience which is extensive, this is an issue that needs fixing. @Ton Frederiks has kindly raised a ticket.

[Ton Frederiks]

Hi Vanessa, when Illustrator adds random overprint to files, it is worth reporting it.

In this discussion it was not about objects set to overprint, it is about a strange confusing appearance of a dash in the attributes panel when there are no objects with overprint. Preflight shows no overprint in these cases and it should not affect printing. Please add your vote to UserVoice if you want the attention of the developers.

[Vanessa5FF5]

Thanks Ton. Will do