Why InDesign changes 100% Black (K) text to CMYK in PDF?

[Loomanator]

Hi, I'm hoping someone can help me. I have an InDesign document (v15.0.3) with 100% Black text. When I export this to PDF using just the Adobe PDF preset "Press Quality", my 100% black text is converted to CMYK with the text appearing on all 4 printing plates instead of just the black plate. I sent the same file to a friend and he exported to PDF using the same "Press Quality" and the black text came out on only the black plate as 100% black (which is what I want). I have switched computers recently to a Macbook Pro 15, 2019 running Mojave 10.14.6, so I am wondering if there is some setting somewhere in InDesign that I need to change so that 100%black text in InDesing seperates to 100% black text on only the Black plate when exporting to PDF. I hope my explaination is clear. 

• Macbook Pro 15, 2019 running Mojave 10.14.6
• InDesign (v15.0.3)
• I have in set my preferences "Appearance of Black" to Display/Output All Blacks Accurately (but from what I understand this is just for on-screen and digital printing NOT press. 
• I have my "Document Blend Space" as "Document CMYK"
• My colour setting is "North American General Purpose 2"
• I even tried selecting the text and clicking "overprint" in the Attributes menu.
•  

Please help me.

Thanks, Loomanator

[Manan Joshi]

Moving to InDesign forum for better responses

-Manan

[vladan saveljic]

It's better to export to PDF/X4-2008

but if you want to check your "press quality" optons can we see this your settings?

[Loomanator]

Thanks for your help. I tired PDF/X4-2008 as well, but unfortuately that did not work either. Attached is a screen shot of my settings. Thanks again. Any help is much appreciated. I did notice another thread where the person re-installed Adobe Acrobat. I will try that as well. Also I did a test from Illustrator and had no success.

[rob day]

Is the Simulation Profile in AcrobatPro your Document CMYK profile:

[rob day]

Is the black text filled with the default [Black] swatch, and is the color mode of the swatch CMYK? If the Intent of the document is something other than Print the default [Black] swatch would be RGB.

Try exporting using the PDF/X-4 preset and view the PDF in AcrobatPro with Output Preview turned on.

[Loomanator]

Rob:

Thanks for your help as well.

Is the black text filled with the default [Black] swatch, and is the color mode of the swatch CMYK? - Yes

If the Intent of the document is something other than Print the default [Black] swatch would be RGB. - The document is for print. When I roll the mouse over default [Black] it gives me a C=0, M=0, Y=0, K=100 break.

It is odd. When I view with seperations preview in InDesign the CMYK break looks fine (my text is on the black plate only), but when I use Output preview in Acrobat my text is broken into CMYK and is on all the CMYK plates.

I tired PDF/X4-2008 as well, but unfortuately that did not work either. Thanks again. Any help is much appreciated. I did notice another thread where the person re-installed Adobe Acrobat. I will try that as well. Also I did a test from Illustrator with the same result. I have never encountered this before.

[Luke Jennings3]

I suspect the issue is with Acrobat, not InDesign. Check the Acrobat preference> Accesibility> Replace document colors, if this is on, it could change the color of the black type. Try resetting your Acrobat preferences, or re-install, taking care to say yes to overwriting the existing preferences.

[Loomanator · Accepted solution]

Thank you to everyone for your help! I ended up taking everyone's advice and my problem is solved. I think Acrobat was the problem.

• I unintalled and reinstalled Acrobat and overwrote my existing preferences
• I made sure I was using the same Simulation Profile in AcrobatPro and my Document CMYK profile
• I double checked to make sure Acrobat preference> Accesibility> Replace document colors was turned off
• And I noticed one other little thing - under Convert Colours, I clicked Preserve Black on

Everything seems fine now, with my 100% black text only on the black plate in PDF. Thank you so much for all your help!!