White Line Problem with InDesign when "Printing the Book"

[sean_ropp]

I've been having some issues when attempting to print the book I'm working on. This is making use of the book making process where I create an .indb file that is made up of multiple .indd files. When I print the whole document or even just one of the sections via the "Printing the Book" button the result see's white lines appearing around almost everything that overlaps. Like if I have a PNG image that has transparent aspects ontop of another image, the white lines appear around the boarder.

Now if I use the normal "export" for just 1 of the docs then I don't see these white lines at all.

This is the first time I've used the book making aspect of InDesign, so I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong.

[Scott Falkner]

Is this showing on a printout or in an exported PDF? If the latter, what program are you using to view the PDF? Have you tried printing the problem pages?

[sean_ropp]

When using the "Print the Book" it prints to Adobe PDF. And I'm using Adobe Acrobat Pro to view. The "Print the Book" is the only way I can compile all the seperate sections into 1 PDF book that I know of. Normal Exporting doesn't work for this.

[Willi Adelberger]

Those stitching lines come up, when transparency is flattened and in Acrobat's Preferences > Page Display "smooth images" is activated.

If you use PDF/X-4 for export and import no transparency flattenin comes up and you can avoid these lines.

Why do you use PNG for a print project. Avoid it. Where does it come from?

[sean_ropp]

PNG's are the images in the project. Better detail and allows for transparency of certain images when overlaping on others. JPG's are used for some other images but overall don't work as they lack the same detail in comparison. Also I cannot export all the sections of the book, it only does 1 section at a time into a PDF. The only option I found that compiles all the sections into 1 book is via the "Print the Book" option.

However I did uncheck "smooth images" in Acrobat, as well as "Smooth Line Art" and that took out the white lines. But if these are, as a default, checked for other users, then just unchecking them on my end doesn't resolve the overall problem when other people see it.

[Willi Adelberger]

PNGs do not support color management and have a limited support for transparency. Better is to resave them as PDF, PSD or TIFF. 

If you save the files in a version with no transparency flattening, others will neither see the lines. But you have to avoid placing files with reduced transparency also. Therefore I recommend to use PDF/X-4 for image import. 

[sean_ropp]

Ok, so my sister (who works in publishing) came over and helped me sort out my problem. Super easy fix since she works with this stuff all the time.

[Scott Falkner]

As this problem might come up for others who might search for the problem it's helpful to post the solution you found. I bet it involves resaving images as TIF or PSD.