Indesign cropping leaves hidden text objects in a PDF, need to view in "wireframe" mode?

[elellilrah]

Here's a weird one. It seems cropping an image in Indesign leaves artifacts sometimes.

I'm having trouble with uploading to Amazon KDP - their system is saying there's text too close to the margin. But it's totally invisible in the PDF. But their system catches it.

Attached is the wireframe from Amazon support showing hidden graphics in a wireframe view. How do you do wireframe view?

Also, attached is the warning from their book review system - it's catching hidden text.

I've also attached the Indesign screencap of the page with the graphic clearly cropped.

It seems Indesign is hiding the text/graphics but it's actually still inside the PDF somehow.

How can one see the Wireframe mode? Adobe Acrobat, Reader, Indesign? This would be helpful in the future to know to avoid this weird problem.

[elellilrah]

Once I took the maps I created in Indesign, cropped the artboard down to the area of interest, exported that portion of the AI file to a PDF, and re-imported into Indesign, the file would pass the check.

Why does Indesign not actually truly "crop" the AI file but leaves a hidden pile of crumbs?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

KDP is... maddening. "Arbitrary and opaque" is just the beginning. 

Be glad you found a fix without having to rely on any useful return data. They aren't much good at providing it. 

But it's not news that graphics within PDFs are often only masked, not cropped. It's a dirty little secret that docs cropped in Acrobat to hide info can often be retrieved whole. And of course, all that data bulk is retained as well.

Use processes that actually crop images, especially AI and PDF, for all these reasons.

[elellilrah]

Wow that's really good to know things are masked over not truly cropped away. Will be more careful for sure. Don't want to leave something I don't want getting out.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

To be clear, this is almost wholly a PDF issue, not InDesign. Why ID sends all the info at export is a bit mystifying but I think it works on the "masking objects" principle as well. But unless you reduce a PDF's size or compress it, pretty much all objects sent to export are still there, just off-page or masked over. It's bitten more than one "clever" type.

But as KDP uses bots to evaluate work, they aren't really smart enough to know that an object is masked, hence all the warnings and errors. I just about guarantee you would never get past automated/stupid-bot responses no matter how you tried. I know I never have, even for the most exasperatingly obvious issues.

[elellilrah]

Are you familiar with the "wireframe view" that KDP support sent over? I've not been able to find that in Indesign, Acrobat, or Acrobat Reader? That'd be really helpful to know what program could show that so I can avoid issues in the future.

Good to know on the PDF issue - I learn something new in DTP all the time.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

No, that's a feature of their processing system. You can of course turn on working view in ID, but it will not show you the boundaries of objects masked by frames unless you directly select the object. (If there's a setting to show those boundaries by default, I don't know where it is — there are a number of controls for showing what guides, edges, etc., though.)

FWIW, I've never run into this problem with KDP, but I don't tend to use large graphics under small frames for work I send there. Maybe I just haven't hit the jackpot yet. 🙂

[leo.r]

my understanding is the following (i'm sure others will correct me if I'm wrong):

you can't truly crop an imported non-raster page (that is a page that contains vector objects, including fonts). just like you can't truly "crop" a PDF page (as you already mentioned), even in Acrobat (unless it consists of raster images only). you can only mask such pages. i assume it's just too complex to "slice" multitude of vector objects, including text. how, for example, would you slice live text that's not converted to outlines?

now, evidently you could achieve a real crop when you exported the artboard from Illustrator. i assume Illustrator is more sophisticated when dealing with its own files. still, if your artboard boundaries crop live text in Illustrator it will also only be masked in PDF.

in Acrobat, if you cropped your page in Acrobat itself, you can try to reveal masked areas via the Set Page Boxes feature (Cmd-Shift-P).

[elellilrah]

The only way I figured out how to do it was to crop the artboard in Illustrator only for the area of interest, then export the artboard to a PDF. That way Illustrator did the cutting and I still had a vector image.

KDP suggested converting to raster but the fine lines of the map looked terrible. So, I went with the cropped PDF from Illustrator and it worked as needed.

Good to know about the "fake" cropping in Indesign. You're right - how could ID really "crop" anything like that. 

Always learning something new in the desktop publishing world.

[Eugene Tyson]

Sorry for butting in - and maybe and probably not the answer - but wondering does the setting in exporting to PDF of Clip Images to Frames does not have any effect?

[leo.r]

...but wondering does the setting in exporting to PDF of Clip Images to Frames does not have any effect?

By @Eugene Tyson

as far as I know it only affects raster images (but I'm too lazy to run any actual tests right now).

[Eugene Tyson]

Same here - might do some later - just popped into my head - will try later when I have time.
But does illustrator not have same feature? Might check that out too.

[elellilrah]

That'd be a great one but I already have that box checked. I wish that fixed the issue. 

[Laubender]

Hi @elellilrah ,

about a wireframe view on a PDF:

There are tools for Acrobat Pro that provide a wireframe view like Enfocus Pitstop Pro.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[elellilrah]

Great, thank you. I saw that software. If I were a full-time production house, I'd get it but @ $32/mo.

I'll just be aware that anything I "crop" from Illustrator in Indesign isn't really a crop but a mask leaving crumbs in the PDF.