Outlining Bullet points

[GiDesign&Marketing]

this ancient adobe bug just cost me $5k

paying monthly for a software that has 20+ year old bugs, but yea glad i have AI becuase thats whats important

[rob day]

The note about Adobe limitations is definately wrong, and I don’t see anything about converting text to outlines. If the Export>Output tab Destination is set to a CMYK profile, all process color gets converted into that destination profile—there would be no exceptions.

[Peter Spier]

Well... they say they have a .joboptions file, but there is no actual link to it where it says "click here" and no reuslts on a search for Joboptions or similar terms.

They also don't seem to support any sort of transparency, and advise that you turn off all overprints, which would be deadly for black type on a non-white background.

Personally, I think I'd find a better printer.

[rob day]

you mean the issue with the fonts not embedding? its 4over.com the upload preflight kicks it back.

Have you checked the PDF’s font properties in Acrobat—can you show a capture? Do your fonts allow embedding?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I have had a few color warnings from 4over and their predecessors and alternate trade outlets, but in ~200 jobs I've never had technical issues with a PDF. They have an extensive technical reference and setup page.

As for the snark about community, you're the one who made your entrance b*tching about a bug that's not one, and has argued and argued that your workflow should somehow work when the community expertise here, up to the most singular expert around, says never to use it. Where you picked up this ancient, crappy workaround and why you are clinging to it in the face of overwhelming advice to 'do better' is on you... not "the community" here. Verb. sap.

[BobLevine]

Not a bug...not even close. And that fact that you converted bulleted text to outlines without even checking it leaves this on 

• You, for not proofing your document properly
• The printer that told you to do it.

There is zero reason for this to have happened and it's certainly not due to a bug.

[GiDesign&Marketing]

i absolutely consider it to be a bug if the bullets disapear
are you saying that adobe wants this to happen?

[BobLevine]

Anything that works as designed, is NOT A BUG! It does not matter how many times you say that it is. This is how it works and every single point about dealing with this has been covered already.

[GiDesign&Marketing]

im sorry i just dont understand why they would be purposly disapearing. what is the function logic behind that?

[rob day]

im sorry i just dont understand why they would be purposly disapearing

Because with the Bullets and Numbering there isn’t an actual typeset bullet—with a paragraph that has Bullets and Numbering applied you can’t select the bullet or number glyph. Again, it would also happen with underlines, strikethroughs, stroked text frames, etc.

are you saying that adobe wants this to happen?

They don’t care. The Create Outlines feature was never intended to be an output intervention to solve missing font issues. That’s a 90’s solution looking for a problem.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Like @rob day said - they are "virtual", there is no physical character / glyph there. The same as there are no glyphs in the font with underline / strikethrough / etc. 

Of course, as InDesign is able to create them - should be also able to outline them... but it doesn't and it's a known problem for a very long time... and as you've pointed out in your opening post - for 20+ years...

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

If you outline text - it's your responsibility to proof read. 

If you give PDF with text - it's printer's responsibility - but then they should print a "proof" that you would have to sign... 

Anyway - sorry to hear about that. 

[GiDesign&Marketing]

yes i agree but humans make mistakes. its bound to happen. just dosnt make sense that a bug like this would still be here after this many years. 1it was a constant issue up to a few years ago then stopped happening too me until recently. yes its my responsibility but thats like saying my mistake once is more punishable than a massive develper's continuous oversite.

[BobLevine]

It's not a bug! Seriously, this is exactly as designed and it has always been this way.

The only way you could have avoided it is if you used real bullets as part of the text or used the convert bullets to text feature. That's it. This is completely on you and the more you insist it's a bug, the more foolish you're going to sound.

Take a breath and learn from your mistake.

[Peter Spier]

Don't know why it would have stopped happening since nothing has changed. If you insist on outling text in InDesign (and by now you MUST know the place to do it, if you have to do it, is in Acrobat after exporting the PDF), then you should be converting bullets and numbering to text first, but of course that doesn't fix the other problems you will continue to have, like loss of underlines.

[Barb Binder]

My chance to quote my favorite reply to this question:

—https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/outline-text-with-bullets-numbering/m-p/9901728#...

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I think the easiest way to check for missing things AFTER outlining, would be to export two PDFs - both with text only - then raster each PDF as B/W in Photoshop and do a "sandwich" - not outlined version on the bottom, coloured in red, then outlined version on top...

[rob day]

Try that on a 120 page book.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Why that would be a problem? Can be easily automated - piece of cake. 

Or even Photoshop isn't needed - JPEGs can be exported instead, directly from InDesign - and then place together in a new document.

Or just outlined JPEGs can be exported and placed in the not outlined - original - INDD file. 

ID-Tasker can handle it easily - on any number of files.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

But going through the Photoshop option - Histogram could be used to automatically find pages with problems...