I need help exporting to PDF: Straight lines become wavy.

[paula_3433]

Hello everyone,
I have encountered a problem several times when exporting PDFs in InDesign. Images with straight but slanted lines suddenly become wavy during export. I have tried various export settings, and this happens with both print PDFs and interactive PDFs. This does not happen when exporting to JPG or PNG if I activate the ‘Smooth edges’ field. Is there a similar setting for PDFs? Or does anyone know of another solution? I am at a loss!

This is a section of the original image.

This is what InDesign does when exporting...

Until now, I had always exported the pages as jpg files and reassembled them in Acrobat Reader, but of course this means that many functions get lost. I'm really struggling here, so thank you in advance for your help!

Kind regards, Paula 🙂

[Anubhav M]

Hello @paula_3433,

Thanks for reaching out. Could you try changing the Compression settings for color images when exporting the PDF to not downsample to see if it helps?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

[paula_3433]

Hello Anubhav,

thank you for your answer.

I have already tried many export settings. The image I posted was exported without any compression (JPEG 2000 lossless).

Best regards

Paula

[Bill Silbert]

Have you tried using the progarm included settings for the print pdfs of High Quality or Press Quality? Have you tried upping the quality to Maximum and the resolution to 300 ppi for the Interactive pdfs?

[paula_3433]

Hi Bill, 

as I already wrote in the reply to Randy below, I need to revise my statements: It seems that there is no problem with the print PDF after all. In that case, it is a digital display error that disappears when zooming or printing.

But the problem still exists when exporting to interactive PDF. Compression is not the issue here; I tried again with ‘maximum’ and ‘300 dpi’. All slanted lines on all pages are wavy, and it looks terrible in the presentation. 

[Randy Hagan]

Please let me ask a dirty question:

Dirty Question: When you print out the placed image in question, does it print cleanly, or does it print with the same jagged lines as shown in your screen captures?

If your PDF prints as poorly as it looks in your screen capture, I'd double-check the Links panel to ensure that your placed graphic is still linked to the InDesign document. Exporting to PNG or JPG effectively renders an InDesign document page to whatever specifications you set from InDesign. Creating a PDF embeds a copy of a graphic placed within InDesign as it generates a PDF replica of your document. If the placed file isn't linked, you would only get the screen representation of that graphic, at a default of 72dpi, embedded in the resulting PDF.

Hope this helps,

Randy

[paula_3433]

Hi Randy,

I need to revise my statements: It seems that there is no problem with the print PDF after all. In that case, it is a digital display error that disappears when zooming and printing.
The image from my first post is from an interactive PDF export. The images are linked as normal. The wavy lines can be seen there on every slanted line on every page and it looks terrible in the online presentation. 

Do you have any other ideas for solving the problem?

Paula

[Randy Hagan]

Maybe. 

If you haven't already, I'd try export compression options to JPEG 2000 (Lossless), Maximum JPEG Quality and 300 dpi. Or, if we're creating presentation slides and using no animation, maybe try to save your PDFs first from Photoshop. If you don't rasterize the type layers, they'll come out as sharp as vector type can reproduce and lock in your image resolution at 300 dpi. 

Other than that, I don't know of anything off the top of my head that could help.

Hope this works for you,

Randy

[Randy Hagan]

Let me add one more thing to try:

In days of old, many folks would create a Postscript print-to-file (.ps) file, then use Acrobat Distiller to translate that into a PDF file. This is not the accepted way to create PDFs these days, but maybe, for your specific purposes, it will serve you well.

1) Print as you would a print document, using the Postscript® File option in the Printer: options box. This will create your .ps file.

2) Open Adobe Acrobat Distiller. Create a new profile to your preferred settings by first selecting the Standard in the Default Settings: options box, then the Settings>Edit Adobe PDF Settings... options box.

3) In the General section, change the Resolution: edit box from 600 to 4000 dots per inch. This is a cheat for rasterizing vector images processed in PDFs to maximum value. That's primarily a print setting, but may be helpful in rendering your presentation PDFs too. Then go to the Images section and set your compression settings to 300 pixels per inch for images above 300 pixels per inch in the Downsample: sections for Color and Grayscale images. For Monochrome images, boost the Downsample: values to 2400 pixels per inch for both edit boxes.

4) Click the Save As... button at the bottom and give your new PDF Settings profile a new name. If it doesn't immediately appear in the Default Settings: options box, change it to your new custom settings.

5) Now go to your File>Open... menu command, navigate your way to your .ps file and click the Open button.

This is a non-standard workflow, but hopefully this will create you a PDF file that banishes your jaggies and lets you apply your interactive elements directly in Acrobat.

Randy

[paula_3433]

Hi Randy, 

thank you for your ideas.

I tried every JPG compression option in the interactive PDF export settings, but none of them worked.

I also followed your instructions and used Acrobat Distiller with the settings, but it looked just as wavy as I showed you the image. Besides, exporting as a print PDF works fine, and if I don't need the interactive elements, I'll just do it via the print PDF.

It's very frustrating because I lose the interactive buttons, elements and functions. Unfortunately, the wavy lines appear in every presentation with straight, slanted lines, and I haven't found a solution yet.

Best regards,

Paula

[Randy Hagan]

All is not lost.

You can export your work as a print-ready PDF, and in many instances, add the interactivity you desire in Adobe Acrobat separately. Hopefully that will get you the image reproduction you require and the interactivity you desire from Acrobat.

Hope this works well for you,

Randy