Andrew Heath

Hi Prophet, as I mentioned earlier. I only have Acrobat reader. So can't see separations. Previously, I had used the preview in Affinity Photo but that did not give an accurate separation as far as I can see. I am only going from what the repro people at the printers are telling me is the situation with the pdfs I have been sending. If, the settings that I have mentioned above work... then it looks like overprinting the text in black can work.

The settings I used to create a pdf that the black text overprinted is as follows. First, I created a 100%K colour set to overprint. Made sure all the text was that colour. Then exported as pdf using the PDF/X 4 setting. Include bleed obviously, colour space and profile 'as document' then make sure the 'convert image colour spaces' is set to off. Then check the overprint black. That seems to work. I only have Acrobat reader so can't see separations.... Hope this helps.

Hi Gabe, thank you... but I guess you're referring to the full Acrobat programme. I only have the reader version. It would just be helpful to have a pre-flight in Publisher. With the help of the two above, I've now worked out how to make overprint work reliably... but still the way Publisher handles colour in general is very flaky. Thank for your input though.

Hi Thomaso, I think that is exactly what I'm getting as well.... I'll be doing a test this morning with Colour spaces turned off!... Thanks for your help.

Hi Loukash, yes that's me... oh dear. I rather thought that might be the case. I started using Quark many years ago and then switched to InDesign, but hate the fiddly interface of Adobe stuff and the subscription model! When Publisher came along I though great!... I find it's fine for digital print but litho... hmm, that's when the problems start. Happy with it all except the way it handles colour! I don't do much design work now though, just my own CDs etc... Huge thanks for your help here!!!! I'll look at those links and try and make sense...

These are the PDF settings I generally use...

Hi Loukash... will do... I'm using the pdf (for print)... but was trying all of them yesterday... PDF/X etc... File uploaded.... however, between repro and myself we apparently managed to make the text overprint but I still don't know how! So couldn't replicate it. The png files I can't make overprint at all. I preview in Photo because there is no preview in Publisher... in the way that you had Pre-flight in InDesign. However, I'm not sure it gives the right information as it shows this document breaking the 100% K colour to CMYK black! New Eden (6 panel digifile) text black artwork.afpub

Not sure what you mean? Do you want just the Publisher document?

Dear All... I have a simple document with images and some black text. I have created a new colour swatch which is 100% black only. This is set to overprint. I use this for the text. When I preview in Photo, the text is shown as a CMYK black. When I export to PDF, the text is NOT overprinting. This seems to have a been a problem forever with this programme. Please can someone help!

Hey thanks everyone!... I didn't expect this much response so huge thanks for your time. I only do these jobs a few times a year... mainly to produce CD print artwork for myself. So I always forget how to get around these problems and very obviously don't know the programme half as much as you people. I will explore the photo persona - I think that will help as I don't use spot colours - and I've made a note of the pdf export settings so further tests are in order today. I'm on Big Sur and one strange thing I noted woking on a test document is that when I use the 'pipette' tool to pick a colour from screen of a black square (manually set to only 100% K), on the swatches pallette it doesn't work and only gives the CMYK readings. Maybe a bug? Further tests today.

Hi Wonderings... I've managed to get it working by manually adjusting the CMYK sliders for each bit of text or for example black picture keylines. This exports fine using one of the PDF/X profiles (I haven't tried it yet with other profiles. I'm now wondering if I've actually created the swatch correctly in the first place and will redo and replace my 'Text Black' swatch. So that's next on to do list. I've had this problem always with Publisher and find the way it handles colour and swatches very confusing! I'm used to Indesign (and was glad when Publisher came along) but think there is room to redo this part of the programme! Will repost back.

Hi Loukash... thank you for that. I will have a look at this. Do you know if there is a way for seeing separations in Publisher as I could do in InDesign?

After further tests... it seems as though Publisher is NOT applying the swatch that I created. Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Dear All. I am creating artwork in Publisher which combines text and CMYK images and will be used to produce litho print from. I have (believe I have) created a 'text black' swatch. This is purely 100% K. No other colours. No Cyan, Magenta or Yellow. However, when I export as a pdf and review in Photo. The 'text black' has reverted to a CMYK black. Please help. Andrew PS. Is there a way to see seperations in Publisher?

Hi All. Very real problem exporting from Publisher to pdf ready for print. I am setting the text and rules (which are black) to 100% K... when I export to pdf they revert to four colour black. Please help!