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charlottel29538615
Inspiring
January 11, 2020
Question

Indesign file exporting black font to grey when opened on other screens.

  • January 11, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 1825 views

Can anyone help please,  my Indesign document is exporting the black font as a grey when opened on another screen.  I've checked my settings in the Appearance of black, and everything is set to Rick Black and the box is ticked to overprint (black).  I've been through past posts and nothing is helping... There must be something straighforward that I am missing?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks 

 

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1 reply

Willi Adelberger
Community Expert
Willi AdelbergerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 11, 2020
  1. Is your document cmyk or rgb?
  2. What kind of black did you use? [black] or C/M/Y/K 0/0/0/100? OR rich black?
  3. Did you use transaprency on that spread?
  4. What are the CM settings?
  5. You say you open on the other screen? The INDD or an exported PDF? If  PDF what export settings did you use? If PDF with which program is it opened on the other screen?
C
charlottel29538615Author
Inspiring
January 12, 2020

Hi thanks for your reply.

I had CMYK value of 40/60/60/100.  This sounds crazy but it seemed to be the weight of the font, it was too think as I experimented with a heavier weight within that font family and it is now previewing as black.  Strange though as on my mac screen and Acrobat preview it is black, but when preview opened the file it was grey.  The problem is resolved but after doing some research the black issue isn't very straight forward with Indesign.  The fact you have to change the CMYK setting yourself to get a true black seems a bit long winded to me?  

Anyway thank you for your reply.  Everyday is a school day!

rob day
Community Expert
rob dayCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 12, 2020

Both InDesign and Acrobat use different anti-aliasing techniques for displaying fine details and small text when the page is zoomed out. The fact that you can solve the problem by choosing a heavier weight makes it sound like it is the display anti-aliasing that makes the type seem gray. Try setting some sample text with both the heavy and lightweight fonts, and zoom in to a high (600%+) magnification to see if the color is really different. Acrobat has a Page Display preference for adjusting display anti aliasing.

 

The preview of CMYK color is dependant on the document’s CMYK profile, and there is usually a decernable difference between Black only and Black +CMY colors because that is what will happen on an offset press where the CMYK colors are smewhat transparent

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