White text on colored background disappeared in pdf - ID2018

[Bpossum]

So, here is my (sad) story: a book printed with no titles at all, a second book printed with random words of the titles (white titles on an orange background). The paragraph style sheet has correct overprint settings, the text box in the master page has correct overprint settings. If I select the text box in the regular page the overprint settings are correct, but if I highlight the text, in the Attributes panel 'overprint filling' is checked in pale gray so that I can't change the attributes. If I select and move the box forth and back, the overprint check disappear. Any suggestions, except an exorcism? I have to explain to a customer why his production of graded readings, this year, would be taken to waste without losing his confidence.

Thanks

Style sheet

Text hilighted

[Laubender]

Hi Bpossum ,

change the view of the page to "Overprint Preview".

Can you still see the text?

If no, select the text frame and check the attributes of the text frame.

Window > Output > Attributes

Could be that it is set to "Non Printing".

EDITED:

Hm. Your screenshot is showing that "Non Stampabile" is not checked.

Maybe there is in an effect applied to the text of the text frame like "Multiply" ?

Regards,
Uwe

[Bpossum]

Hi Uwe,

thanks for your reply. It's an overprint issue so if I select Overprint preview I can't see the text. But what I'm trying to understand is why it occurred as I haven't changed any options and every year I use a previous printed file of the same editorial series (to maintain master pages, style sheets, etc) for the new ones.

If you look at the screenshots, the first one shows that in the Paragraph Style sheet the overprint is correct, but in the Attributes panel it is not (and it is unmodifiable, pale grey).

The windows is set to 'print'.

Thanks

[Bpossum]

*Update*

If I create a new 'white' color (0C 0M 0Y 0K) the problem disappears and the text is shown correctly in Overprint preview. But, why this occurred? It's a software bug?

[Laubender]

Hi Bpossum ,

copy the unchanged text frame where the text is colored with [Paper] plus the object stacked below to a new document.

Is the issue visible in that document as well?

If yes, I'd like to have a look at the document.

Upload it to a service like Dropbox and post the link here.

Regards,
Uwe

[Ganesh_JI]

Hi

I think you created a white text color paragraph style by duplicate or copying any paragraph style with black color and it has overprint fill option enabled. In this cases even though you disable the overprint fill black option still it applied to that white text paragraph style.

Thanks

Ganesh.R

[vinny38]

Excellent assumption!

[Bpossum]

Hi, copied the unchanged text frame plus the object stacked below to a new document, the issue is still visible. And the same if I copy only the text frame and put it on a new colored object.

The only solution seems to change the color 'paper' to a new color 'white'.

The document is confidential and property of a Publishing House, may I share it with you in a more private way?

Thanks

[Bpossum]

I inherited the file on which the project is based from a colleague and I cannot determine if the title text was black at first, but for sure I have been using the same source file for three years, I have printed 9 books and the problem is presented only this year on the last two. The only difference was moving to Indesign 2018

[Laubender]

Bpossum  wrote

Hi, copied the unchanged text frame plus the object stacked below to a new document, the issue is still visible. …

The document is confidential and property of a Publishing House, may I share it with you in a more private way?

Thanks

Hi Bpossum ,

hm… The one frame in the new document is still confidential?

Ok. Then send me a private message with the download link of that new document with the text frame only.

Hover over my name here in the forum, wait a second and then the button "Message" should show up.

With that you can send me a private message no one else in the forum can see.

Regards,
Uwe

[Bpossum]

done! Thank you

[Laubender]

Hi,

Ganesh was on the right track!

Text is overprinting!

Since it is colored with [Paper] you cannot turn off "Overprint" directly using the Attributes panel or your Paragraph Style:

Instead:

Open your applied paragraph style to do some changes.

1. Change the fill color of your Paragraph Style to a different color.

2. Then you can see that "Overprint" is checked.

3. Uncheck "Overprint" in your style.

4. Change the fill color back to [Paper]

Regards,
Uwe

[Bpossum]

Thank you Laubender and Ganesh!

I understood that the text was overprinted and changing the color to a new 'white' the problem is solved.

What I can't explain myself, however, is because nothing happened for 3 years and then in one of the two books the text of the chapters came out, in some pages, partially!

That is the same source document, same master pages, same style sheets, but different behaviors and different overprints in the same style sheet (or text box). For me it's scary, how can you explain it?

[Laubender]

Noboday could tell why it worked before.

Not without looking into the old InDesign documents of a previous versions of your catalog.

And of course into the PDF production files back then.

As I can see from the history of the document it was converted to IDML once.

And it started as document with InDesign CS6 8.1, was saved with CC 2017.1 and then worked on with CC 2018.1.

Regards,
Uwe

[Laubender]

Did you change the printing company?

Maybe someone ran a preflight correction on the PDFs of the old catalog to the effect that white text will not overprint?

Regards,
Uwe

[Bpossum]

Yes, it was created as Id6. And no, the printing company is the same, but the person that follow us has changed.

Really many thanks for your patience and help!

[rob day]

I can confirm Vinny's #5 example where there is a Character Style set to Overprint but no color chosen. That allows you to Overprint the Paper swatch which is typically protected from overprints:

It may be that your previous pre press person disabled any overprints from the RIP. It's not unusual for printers to prevent any color other than Black from overprinting for exactly this reason. If I'm trying to overprint a color for an effect, I'll use the Multiply effect, so I don't get in the way of the trapping.

[Laubender]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/rob+day  wrote

…It may be that your previous pre press person disabled any overprints from the RIP. …

That's a dangerous sport. Especially if I think of transparency flattening mechanisms that require overprints for [Paper].

Not to allow overprinting in an object could ruin the visual appearance of a flattened PDF/X-1a file.

What should have been done is leaving the PDFs alone and do decent proofing.

At this stage of production the issue should have been clearly visible.

Note to the OP: Never send a PDF to printers without visual inspection in Acrobat Pro.

And that means: Overprint Preview must be turned on. Best switch on/off inks as well, especially [Black] with separation preview.

Regards,
Uwe

[Bpossum]

I can confirm that the color of the text in the original English project was black. After this I will always check PDFs turning  overprint preview on! And I will customize Indesign preliminary verify for overprint issues.  

Thanks everybody!

[vinny38]

Hi

I can recreate the issue by applying a character style where "overprint fill" is checked.

You can check that out.

Also, I would highly recommend using a preflight profile where "White or [paper] overprints" - or even "overprint applied in Indd" - is set up.