White is black for some reason!

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
May 31, 2021
5 replies
5654 views

Hi

Last week I did a flag banner for a client and all looked OK and fine in the illustrator file. I created outlines on the text and exported to both PDF and EPS. Uploaded them, assumming there were the same as the AI file. I also did a JPG export to show the client all was OK.

Today, the client got in touch. "What happened? The text was black!!"

See attached images...

Even though the text appears white in the artboard, the colour selector shows the colour to be black.

The JPG file was great and looked as it should.

How does this happen, and how can I prevent this in future?

Thanks in advance

Rob

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Orla_Orla

I had this same issue; on the apperance panel it appears as a white fill, but in PDF export black text.
I updated Illustrator, no luck.

Solution: Copied the text, made a new layer, pasted, set to outline and renamed the file. For some reason that ended up working!

O

Orla_OrlaCorrect answer

Participant

I had this same issue; on the apperance panel it appears as a white fill, but in PDF export black text.
I updated Illustrator, no luck.

Solution: Copied the text, made a new layer, pasted, set to outline and renamed the file. For some reason that ended up working!

Kurt Gold

Community Expert

Yes, it's pretty mysterious. As well as Ton I haven't found a way to reliably reproduce it so far.

My guess is that it is some kind of corruption at the object level, possibly caused by a very tricky, but unknown bug.

As far as I can see, it must have something to do with the greyscale mode in the Colours palette since the wrong colour indication immediately disappears when you choose any of the other modes (CMYK, RGB, HSB).

Another quite astounding thing is that you can somehow reverse the situation by:

- selecting one of the white type objects.

- choosing black percentages from 99,5 % up to 100 % in the Colours palette (in greyscale mode)

In this case the type object appears to be black, but the colour indicator says it is white.

Kurt Gold

Community Expert

It is not necessarily required to share the entire file.

It may be sufficient to provide just a part, namely the part that contains the type object in question.

Rob Art IllustrationAuthor

Inspiring

This is the file broken down to the problem area.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/36qf5hnayw57d4q/text_black.ai?dl=0

The font was created by me, so you wont have that. If that is the issue, let me know and I can share.

Rob

practice safe design | use a concept ~ Petrula Vrontikis

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

Thank you for the file.

It is indeed a mystery to me why this happens.

I is easily solved by applying white when you see the black mystery fill, but I cannot detect the reason it is there, but only visible when outlines are created.