Master pages showing incorrectly

[georgek37401698]

Having a bizarre issue with a report. Each section of the report has a differently colored watercolor design. The watercolor files are photoshop files that only have one layer.

The file looks fine in indesign but when I export to PDF, one of the pages in a section with parent D instead shows a red color from parent C.

That red colored file only in parent C and nowhere else in document.

Parent D is not based on parent C. 

I created an all-new parent from scratch, applied it, and in the PDF, parent C still shows.

I also reinstalled indesign, still no change.

Any thoughts?

[Bill Silbert]

Is your Pages Panel showing the correct Parent letter for the page in question? It might be worth a try to first remove the Parent Page that is applied to that page and then reapplying it.

[georgek37401698]

Yes, I tried that, even tried creating a new parent from scratch. 

[Peter Spier]

Please show us a screen capture of your pages panel showing boththe Parent pages (all of them) and the affected document page.

[georgek37401698]

Here is the pages panel. The page in question is page 12; originally I had master D applied to it, then changed to master F. By the way, the master pages with images each consists of two separate images, one for verso and one for recto, although they look like they are one image spanning two pages.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Or if you can - share your document - can be "blank" - without main Text / Graphic contents - but with Pages and Masters.

[georgek37401698]

OK here is a stripped-down version of the file, no text and images. Now all 3 pages with olive (10, 11, and 12) export to PDF as the red color. Either I'm doing something fantastically stupid or something is very wrong—probably the former lol.

[Peter Spier]

I'm getting the same result here.

I've simplified your Parent page structure -- you had two identical pages using A, but different names, and similarly several pages that were identical but differently prefixed and named for individual sections of your report, if I understand waht you did. I eliminated all the duplicates and left only one set with each color and an additional set of the B type with no line on either page, rather than your original arrangement.

Sadly, this did not fix the problem.

Exporting to .idml would be the next logical step, but doesn't help here without having your linked images since missing links just end up as gray boxes. You shouold try it on your end, however, and be sure your links are intact.

You might want to also re-link the images.

I tried another standard trouble shooting step, moving the pages to a new file, and that made no difference either, so my suspicion is that whatever is wrong here is with the link to the image.

[georgek37401698]

Thanks, Peter, much appreciated. I in fact already tried exporting to .idml, no joy. I think between you and Uwe it's clear that this isn't a dumb goof but something weird, and since I have to send this file for a proof, I'm going to remove the troublesome parent pages and recreate the background "manually," if that makes sense.

[Laubender]

Hi @georgek37401698 ,

thank you for your document.

I opened your InDesign document with InDesign 2023 version 18.5.0.57 on macOS.

Added page numbers so I can better see what's going wrong in the exported PDF.

As far as I can see there is an issue on pages 9, 10, 11 and 12.

The wrong image seems to be applied when exported to PDF.

At least your InDesign layout is showing different previews.

Then I exchanged the images on the parent pages with fill colors.

Exported to PDF again. Now all is exported as is in the layout.

My guess now is that something's wrong with the preview in your layout.

I cannot correct this, because I do not have the image files at hand.

Attached the document where I exchanged the images with fill colors and the exported PDF:

2022-23 annual report adobe post-EDITED-UL-2.pdf
2022-23 annual report adobe post-EDITED-UL-2.indd

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[georgek37401698]

Hi Uwe

I really appreciate the work you have done on this but I have to admit I don't know what you mean that something is wrong with the preview. You mean the ID document is not previewing correctly? That the image I see from the parent page that looks correct in ID is showing wrong, and the PDF is showing what I should be seeing?

What would cause that, considering I reinstalled Indesign?

[georgek37401698]

Replying to my own comment. I have sort of figured out the problem. That photoshop file is somehow corrupt. It shows incorrectly in a new, clean document. I had to delete it and recreate it.

[Peter Spier]

I suspected it was something like that. Could it accidentally been overwritten with the red version?

[georgek37401698]

Nope. It looked fine in photoshop, too. Must be corrupt.

[Peter Spier]

Very strange.

[Peter Spier]

I wonder if you have two files with the same name in different locations. What happens if you open the .indd with the problem, select that image and choose Edit Original in the links menu?

[georgek37401698]

I went back to my original problematic file and the image opens fine. Unique name. The .psd file opens fine. Just screws up the .indd file.

[Peter Spier]

I'm stumped. Never seen anything similar.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I'm stumped. Never seen anything similar.

By @Peter Spier

@georgek37401698 - can you share your INDD file + those linked files - but original files, not as package?

[georgek37401698]

Sorry, Robert, in the desperation to get this done for a deadline I didn't hold onto the original problematic file, but it seems clear now all the trouble was coming from that one photoshop file. Replacing it with a new one fixed all the issues.