Black and White PDF converts to CMYK when placed in InDesign

[devind85047980]

Working with a Black only pdf placing into Indd causes the file change to CMYK black (4 color). Doing this on other computers results in file staying black only. I'm not sure if this a acrobat issue or a Indd issue.

Any insights on how to fix, thanks in advance.

Edit:

operating system = OSX 10.14.6 (18G103)

INDD = 15.1.2

Acrobat = 2020.012.20043

[SJRiegel]

Check the color space of your InDesign document - it maybe RGB

[devind85047980]

Orignal file was RGB pdf, converted with in acrobat to be black only. Placed in a CMYK document in INDD. The placed pdf turns the black to a photoshop cmyk mix black. However, when exporting the pdf from indd its back to black only. It seems like there is a display issue?

[rob day]

Placed in a CMYK document in INDD. The placed pdf turns the black to a photoshop cmyk mix black.

InDesign doesn’t have a document color space—there can be a mix or RGB, CMYK, Lab or grayscale objects on the same page. If the black objects in the PDF have an embedded CMYK profile that conflicts with your InDesign document’s assigned CMYK profile, Separation Preview would show 4-color.

You can check the color space and profiles of the objects in the PDF via Output Preview>Object Inspector.

[rob day]

Are you checking the values with Separation Preview? Using the Eyedropper tool on a PDF samples the preview proxy and doesn’t give you the actual values.

[rob day]

Set your Color Settings’ CMYK Policy to Preserve Numbers (Ignore Linked Profiles), create a new document and place the PDF.

If Separation Preview still shows a 4-color black, can you share the PDF?

[devind85047980]

Okay... We have no idea what happened but it seems to be working correctly. while making a pdf to share (had to take confidential items off the original art) it started working correctly... No idea what happened. but thanks for the help/input of what it could possibly be... We can't get it to replicate again