Indesign PDF Export background image not displaying in some Readers.

And I have added 

noreply@mail.community.adobe.com

to my contacts but forum replies still go to spam.

@Laubender

Uwe, I'm wondering if Acrobat 4 compatability (specification 1.3) would work here. I don't have my version references handy, but I think this was before Acrobat handled layers and transparencies well enough. I usually recommend Acrobat 6 (spec 1.5) as a minimum.

Also, maybe PDF Interactive might produce a sufficient workable PDF, rather than PDF Print. Worth a try.

Adobe only focuses on exporting PDFs that display correctly on Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader. Best I can tell, they do not focus on compatibility with 3rd party readers.

~Barb

By @Barb Binder

Barb, I understand what you're trying to say here, but it needs to be flipped around to be accurate.

Background: When Adobe donated the PDF file format to the International Standards Committee (ISO) in 2008, PDF became an open standard and from that point on, anybody could create software that could make PDFs and/or read (aka, process or render) them.

However, all of those companies must follow the programming standard for PDFs — called the ISO 32000 standard https://www.iso.org/standard/75839.html — which ensures that the PDF is correctly encoded for viewing, processing, etc.  The standard isn't written or controlled by Adobe anymore: it's an international committee of PDF experts from many different companies, including those who make PDF software.

15 years later, we now have hundreds of 3rd party programs that make and/or read PDFs, but few of them actually follow the standard well enough, so end users get all sorts of problems like what's posted above.

My shop reviews and test these manufacturers' PDF-related apps and we find that Adobe makes the best programs for making/exporting PDFs as well as the best programs for reading/processing PDFs.

Adjusting what was originally stated: Adobe only focuses on exporting PDFs that meet the ISO 32000 standards for PDFs. display correctly on Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader. They do not focus on compatibility with  Whether or not 3rd party readers process PDFs correctly is a crap shoot, and Adobe has no control over what other companies do or how well they follow the open source international standard for PDFs.

@geigreg, the problem lies with the software used by your curriculum team, most likely re: how the background image's transparency is being interpreted by the reading software. Most 3rd party programs do not know what to do with transparency; some show the graphic at full 100% intensity, others not at all. (Most likely the software's programmers never read the entire standard because transparency is specified towards the end of the standard, around page 979 in Annex Q, IIRC.)

If you can, tell us the variety of software programs and operating systems your colleagues used. There really shouldn't be a difference between Mac and Windows reading apps, but you never know!

Some suggested guidelines for your campus:

• Don't open PDFs in browsers, which notoriously fail to fully process (or render) PDFs with all their features (like transparency, forms, accessibility, color accuracy, and interactive stuff).
• MS Edge tends to hijack the PDF file format. It sets itself as the default program to open when a PDF is double-clicked from a website or Mac finder or Windows file explorer. See if you can adjust the default to Acrobat Reader.
• Encourage users to download the PDF and open it directly in an Adobe product — the free Reader, Acrobat Standard, or Acrobat Pro.
• PDFs made from office software might render OK in 3rd party software because generally this type of PDF is mainly text and simple graphics. No transparency, interactivity, forms, or other fancy stuff we designers throw into our InDesign layouts.
• If the software is free or very cheap, you get what you paid for. The only exception is Adobe Reader, which was developed back in the day when only Adobe could make and read PDF files.

Hope this helps.

—Bevi

US Delegate to the ISO committees for PDF (32000), PDF/X (print & graphic arts), PDF/A (archival), PDF/UA (universal access) and PDF/E (engineering) international standards. I actually read these standards several times a year ... for funsies, you know, because it's such "lite" reading when I have insomnia. Gah! I've got to get a personal life!