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gebseng
Participating Frequently
April 28, 2023
Question

Apple Devices showing blank pages in pdfs exported from Indesign

  • April 28, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 2565 views

Hi everyone,

 

I'm having some issues with Apple devices not displaying certain pages of a pdf I've exported from Adobe Indesign (v18.2.1).

 

This is a link to the pdf (~30MB): https://lueckenraum.at/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Luckenraum_Portfolio_2023-04.pdf

 

On Macs and iPhones, pages 5, 8, 18, 23-26 and 35 are only shown as blank pages, the content is missing.

 

What I've found out so far:

- The pdf works fine in Adobe Acrobat on all platforms (Mac, Windows, iOS 16).
- The pdf also has no issues when viewed inline in Safari on macOS Ventura.
- the pages mentioned above are shown blank when viewed inline in Safari in iOS, and als in the Books app in iOS 16.
- they are also blank in the Preview app on macOS Ventura.

 

I've already tried resizing the images on these pages in Indesign, to no avail. I'm exporting pdf 1.4, the images are downsized to 200dpi.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

 

Gebhard

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    L
    Community Expert
    LaubenderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 28, 2023

    Hallo Gebhard,

    probier's mal mit den folgenden PDF Export-Einstellungen; sorry, habe gerade nur die englische Version des Dialogs zur Hand:

     

    Gruß,
    Uwe Laubender
    ( Adobe Community Expert )

      G
      gebsengAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      April 28, 2023

      Exporting with pdf v1.5 seems to alleviate the issue. Do you think this will lead to compatibility issues, since Indesign suggests pdf v1.4 as default?

      G
      gebsengAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      April 28, 2023

      Hm...

      I'd strictly go with Acrobat 4 (PDF 1.3). Just as I showed it in my answer above.

      Where transparency is flattened. Additionally it could help that all page elements are converted to sRGB. In case there are spot colors do not convert them with the Ink Manager before output. I've seen browsers that show spot colors either in the wrong color or nothing at all.

       

      Regards,
      Uwe Laubender
      ( Adobe Community Expert )


      Thanks Uwe! That sounds good.

      BobLevine
      Community Expert
      BobLevineCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      April 28, 2023

      Apple's Preview app is fine for plain vanilla PDFs but it has long been known to be troublesome otherwise. If it works in Acrobat or Reader the issue is indeed going to be in the reader app.

       

      When you export from InDesign you should note that the words Adobe PDF are not their by accident. There are simply too many substandard PDF readers for Adobe to even attempt to support them.

      G
      gebsengAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      April 28, 2023

      Thanks Bob! Thing is, I'm aware of that and have tried making my pdf as "vanilla" as possible. I'm using pdf v1.4 for export, which dates back to 2001. Also, the blank pages (as all the others) contain no interactive elements, just a bounding box with an RGB image.

      BobLevine
      Community Expert
      BobLevineCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      April 28, 2023

      Have you tried PDF/X-4

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