Strange PDF behaviour export PDF

[John Beeckaert]

Hello,

A very strange thing occurs at the company I work. We have these flyers that need to be printed every week. Those flyers contain the same red square textframes in red with white text inside. It happens now and then, on some buttons, after exporting the PDF with a fixed preset we use for years, that on some buttons the red color disappears, but white text inside remains visible. It worked with no problem for years, but now it happens now and then, on some buttons this happens. The text is inside the textbox, so no additional textframe on top.

Could it be a corrupt PDF preset? Or could it be something in Indesign? I suggested to turn on "overprint preview".

[Derek Cross]

This sounds like a  PDF for print but "buttons" makes it sound like an interactive PDF – can you clarify ?

[John Beeckaert]

Well yes, the term "button" is not in the sense of interactive ones, my bad. The PDF exports are for print. It seems like on some objects, the red rectangle with white text in it, gets set on "no color" as fill color when exporting to a print PDF. The odd thing is, while all these objects are duplicates, it doesnt happen on all off them. One day it works fine, on other days it randomly flushes the fill color to "none" in the PDF for a few objects. In Indesign, the red color is still visible. Turning on "overprint preview" should not result in a solid red color, to be totally disappear right, or convert the swatch to 0%? I should test with the PreFlight module perhaps.

[John Beeckaert]

Its like the same effect that "white is in overprint" ... can it be swatch related?

[jane-e]

Hi @John Beeckaert 

I just tested and think I got the same results.

• Text frame with red fill, rounded corners, bevel effect
• White text inside same text frame
• Convert to button (I gave it an action to go to the next page)
• Export to Print PDF: first straignt settings, then newer version of Acrobat

In Acrobat:

• Button disappeared
• Button did not show in Form editing

Back to InDesign:

• If I choose "Include Appearance", the button formatting goes into the PDF, but it does not work as a button.
• A button with no fill and no stroke could be made in Acrobat Pro as a workaround.

Print PDFs used to include buttons and hyperlinks. I don't know if Adobe changed something.

~ Jane

[John Beeckaert]

I threw the PDF into illustrator and saw that the frame from the button is gone ... is it technically possible (without the possibility that the frame was set on "not printing") that indesign can throw away a frame but keeps the content while making a PDF?

[jane-e]

I think it's a bug, but I'd like others to test before it's reported to Adobe. Try the workaround I just posted.

~ Jane

[Peter Spier]

Another bit of advice, if you "recycle" the file from week to week by changing the content and doing a Save As, stop.

Make a template file with all the stuff that repeats and your styles, and use that to make a fresh newsletter each week. While InDesign is more stable than some other programs, recycled files tend to build up minor corruptions that can make them squirrely, or even fatally flawed over time.

[Ashutosh_Mishra]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about your experience. Would it be possible for you to share a small video of the workflow? Please share version of the OS & InDesign as well.

I'd also request you to report any bug/improvement on Adobe InDesign UserVoice. This forum is monitored by product team. They'll be happy to look into it.

Regards,

Ashutosh

[John Beeckaert]

Hi,

Apologies for my abscence, many deadlines, but here is how it evolved so far.

In Indesign CC 2021, it all seems OK. A Preflight run didn't find anything unusual, nor in the buttons or anywhere else. No tranparancy or anything that could suggest a weird setting in Indesign was discovered.

What I suggested, and what solved the problem ... for now, ... was to resave the preset for that PDF export. I simply resaved the same PDF export preset but with a different name (e.g. with a v2 behind the name) in the Indesign export Adobe Print PDF dialog (cmd+e). So far, we haven't had the issue anymore, but it can always pop up again. In that case, the problem must obviously, be somewhere else and I will try to provide screenshots.

Personally I had to work for that customer the past 2 weeks (I usually never do) and haven't experienced the problem myself, as the PDF export presets are stored locally on the Macintosh HD my intuition got stronger the problem is/was PDF preset related.

So the way I see it, is that the PDF preset, which my collegue uses for some years now, might have encountered a glitch, due to an Indesign update or for some obscure mysterious reason.