Pixelated type - some text boxes, not all

[bysea]

I'm on Win10/ID 13.1 (latest) and can't get rid of the jaggies on type in some text boxes. When I'm typing in it, it appears to be fine, but as soon as I stop, it goes pixelated again. Also, some of the spreads have images and if I remove those images, the jaggies go away as well - I'm not sure what's happening.

This was also originally created in a Mac and now being edited on a PC. Any ideas?!?

Thanks for your help!

[bysea]

This looks to be my issue - https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/20507950-text-rendered-...

[rob day]

bysea  wrote

This looks to be my issue - https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/20507950-text -rendered...

Variations on this question are common and I think it might be an OS thing. I've never seen the "text bolding" issue with text and transparency on OSX— c.pfaffenbichler is viewing on OSX. Your #10 link seems to be gone so I can't check your file, but I would be curious if another Windows user sees the transparency problem.

[bysea]

After some research on Windows WDDM, it appears that is contributing to it. I added the link back here if you want to take a look. I hope that this gets resolved soon and msft and Adobe can get a fix together.

There are some bad artifacts when dragging the interface around the screen as well, colors doing weird things - not confidence inspiring when trying to get images/colors right for print.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvyZArO2RtbPiR-2jud3EW3LbiLp

[rob day]

I can't see much difference. The color changes with the RGB Blend Space, which is to be expected. You've placed a CMYK image on a page with transparency, so the RGB blend space will convert the background image to RGB.

There could be a slight difference when I'm zoomed out below 100%, but seems more like a color change. I'm using the latest OSX:

I don't think you have a problem if you are exporting live transparency (PDF/X-4). If you are flattening (i.e., PDF/X1-a) you want to make sure the flatterer preset you select isn't rasterizing the text.

Also, you are placing a CMYK image and Screening it over an RGB color. Why place a CMYK image and then blend it with an RGB color?

The CMYK Transparency Blend Space is going to convert your InDesign RGB fill to CMYK—blending mixed spaces can produce unexpected results. I would consider placing an RGB image and setting the blend space to RGB. Then you can turn on Overprint Preview and see how the page will convert to your document's CMYK space.

There are some bad artifacts when dragging the interface around the screen as well, colors doing weird things

Check your Preferences>Interface>Options, if you set Live Screen Drawing to Delayed there's no preview color management when you scroll.

[bysea]

You won't on OSX as it seems to be a Win10 problem.

I probably just left in the RGB by accident messing around with every setting just to see what affects what as it's not operating normally, but I'm using CMYK colors and blend space on my production document. That's what got me looking at the text wondering why it was so pixelated.

The images higher in the thread show my text. Like I said, there's even a case of removing an image that has no text on it, and the page just changes colors randomly and the text comes back to normal as well, but then the same thing as no effect on another page that has the same assets on it.

Screen drawing is already set to 'immediate', but doesn't seem to help. When viewing with my client, I have to set it to the RGB blend space or it appears that text on some pages is the wrong size due to the pixelation - fun, fun.

[bysea]

If you have time, can you save the ID file with your settings and post it and I can see what it does when I open it again? I'd be shocked if something changed, but worth looking at. Thanks.

[rob day · Accepted solution]

I don't think this solves your Windows display problem, but here is the colored grayscale version where the spread has no transparency so the Transparency Blend Space or Overprint setting have no affect.

NoTransparency

Assuming your printer handles transparency correctly, the transparency display issues wouldn't show in print output, but as a general best practice I'll avoid transparency if I can get the same effect some other way.

If placed Photoshop files have a Background layer, you can use transparency effects in the PSD file without invoking InDesign's Transparency Blend space. So in this case another way to avoid transparency would to make the blue fill as the background in Photoshop and handle the Screen effect and transparency percentage with a layer.

[bysea]

Thanks for providing that and it's exactly what I did. I removed all the ID settings for that background graphic (screen, 30%, etc.) and did it all in Ps and then relinked the new graphic removing any transparencies.

So when I did that, a few things happened:

• On one page, everything reverted back to normal (text, nice and full/anti-aliased)
• Another page reverted to normal after swapping a placed non-trans file
• Another page did nothing, same text issue, and identical background file used
• Another page with no graphics, but a colored background and some white text on a 1/4 of the page, did nothing - same pixelated text

So slightly better, but still some random oddities. I appreciate all the help on this thread and hopefully I'm not the only experiencing this in ID. No other Adobe apps don't exhibit this behavior.

[bysea]

Success!!!

After finding/removing a few more native transparency effects in ID and swapping out the remaining graphics for flattened files w/ no trans, everything is back to normal. Thank you all for your help - much appreciated!

There are still issues with ID on Windows which I hope get resolved between MSFT/Adobe as this limits ID functionality by not being able to use any trans-effects in ID or files that include such effects (even using a layered PSD invokes the pixelated text).

Also, there were many helpful "correct answer" that finally got things resolved - thank you...Rob, C.Pfaffenbichler and TSN!

[rob day]

There are still issues with ID on Windows which I hope get resolved between MSFT/Adobe as this limits ID functionality by not being able to use any trans-effects in ID).

I think you want to keep in mind that this is a screen preview issue only, which you can safely ignore—I think if rasterized text was making its way to highend print output on Windows systems we'd be hearing about it, and it would make transparency effects unusable on Windows. If you export a PDF/X-4 from your doc and inspect the text in AcrobatPro, it think you will find the text flow remains as a text object and hasn't been rasterized:

or files that include such effects (even using a layered PSD invokes the pixelated text

You can use layered PSD files and avoid transparency as long as the bottom layer is a Background. So this a a layered file with no Background layer and it will place in ID as a transparent object.

This version has a bottom Background layer and places with no transparency

Here's the layered PSD version

NoTransparency2

Another page with no graphics, but a colored background and some white text on a 1/4 of the page, did nothing - same pixelated text

Any transparent object on the spread, even if it's hidden affects the entire spread.

[bysea]

Correct - it would still be nice to see what you're doing w/o having to keep creating a pdf and/or thinking there are issues and/or trusting what's really happening visually.

I also couldn't open the psd you uploaded (Ps said wasn't a valid file - maybe Mac to Win issue), but no worries.

Thanks again for the help!

[rob day]

Probably wanted to be zipped. Try this

Dropbox - NoTransparency2.zip

[bysea]

Got it - that worked, thanks.

[rob day]

You won't on OSX as it seems to be a Win10 problem.

Right, I think transparency and text has always caused preview problems on Windows. There are lots of threads and I've never been able to recreate the problems on OSX.

Is the preview OK if you zoom in over 200%? Or export to PDF/X-4?

Also in this particular case you could create a similar effect without transparency by converting the image to grayscale and applying CMYK blues to the image and its parent frame. Something like this where the page has no transprency and the blend space doesn't matter:

[Dan Greyhound]

I had this issue with a basic text file; no links or images. I thought the font must be missing but no, it was fine. By the time I'd read through all these replies the issue had magically fixed itself. I guess there isn't always a reason for these things!