Overprint attributes panel

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
September 24, 2023
5 replies
4445 views

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?

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Kurt Gold

Community Expert

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.

V

Vanessa5FF5

Known Participant

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

Community Expert

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.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

I have seen this before and just now I can reproduce it.

I would not worry about it, it does not affect the file.

In this example there was a stroke added to an embedded image. There is no fill in the file but the Overprint Fill has a dash.

Clicking the Overprint to turn it on and again to turn it off does not help, when the image is deselected the dash is back.

Kurt Gold

Community Expert

That's indeed some inconsistent behaviour, Ton. But according to Debbie's screenshots above we are talking about two plain (compound) paths. A sample Illustrator file is required, I'd still say.

What does the brock on the table keep its eyes on?

V

Vanessa5FF5

Known Participant

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.

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.

Test_Overprint_file.zip

Kurt Gold

Community Expert

Can you share a sample Illustrator file?

But first take a look at the Flattener Preview (see Windows menu). In the Preview palette choose Overprints: "Simulate" and click on the Refresh button. Now set the Highlight method to "All Objects".

Do you see any highlights?