2 text frames, 1 exports as image – Why?

[thomaso]

Any idea what forces 1 of these 2 text frames being exported in a PDF (print preset) as image, not text?

v549 abc.afpub
v549 abc.pdf

 

[Wosven]

The 1st one is in "addition" mode (end up as image), when the second is in "normal" mode.

[walt.farrell]

(It took me awhile to figure out Wosven's comment, so I thought I'd provide a visual in case it would help others. Thanks, Wosven, for figuring it out.)

[thomaso]

Ah, thank you, haven't noticed. – The result confused me and let me do some trials with blend modes.

It appears that blend modes exported as PDF 1.7 (print preset) behave different ...

• So, while 'add' gets rasterized, 'multiply' doesn't (see p. 1)
• But even modes 'normal' and 'multiply' can export rasterized for no reason (> p. 2)
• The 'multiply' mode affects text overlaps within 1 frame, while it doesn't show on PDF export. (> p.3)
• On export as "Selection without background" the blend modes appear to be ignored entirely, even with a background object included in the selection. (> p.4)

v549 blend modes.afpub
v549 blend modes.pdf
v549 blend modes - selection w:o backgrd.pdf

Again, has one an idea what is wrong on export / or in my expectations?

[fde101]

On 2/10/2020 at 1:15 PM, thomaso said:

in my expectations

This.

 

PDF files are significantly more limited than native document formats in terms of what can be represented.  If one of the Affinity apps doesn't know how to correctly export a requested layer into the PDF, or if that export would result in the use of PDF features which are forbidden in the selected version of PDF or by some standards requirements, it handles this by rasterizing the layer.

This can also happen if the DPI of the layer is above some threshold set in the export settings - ex. if exporting a 600 DPI pixel or image layer to a 72 DPI PDF, the layer may be re-rasterized in order to reduce the size of the final produced PDF.

 

Furthermore, not all blend modes are supported by PDF - here is some documentation you may find to be of interest:

https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference_archive/blend_modes.pdf

You might note that Multiply is listed as a supported blend mode for PDF, but Add is not.

[thomaso]

On 2/11/2020 at 1:10 PM, fde101 said:

note that Multiply is listed as a supported blend mode for PDF, but Add is not.

Ah, thank you! – Nevertheless I'd like to understand what makes both the "Normal" and the "Multiply" text frame becoming rasterized on page 2 of the .afpub uploaded above:
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=125147

Also I still wonder how I can preserve the overlapping parts in the "Multiply" text on page 3? It appears even rasterizing before export just terminates them.

And how to preserve layer blend modes, either flattened or not, when exporting as "Selection without background" ? (pg. 4)
Also here rasterizing within APub doesn't keep the blend modes even though they still appear after rasterizing within the app on the colored rectangle behind. – Shouldn't at least the object "Multiply" still work on export?

[fde101]

3 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Also here rasterizing within APub doesn't keep the blend modes even though they still appear after rasterizing within the app on the colored rectangle behind.

That one at least on the surface seems to be a bug, but I would need to look at it more closely when I can find some time later on.

[Patrick Connor]

Sorry.

Thank you for reporting a problem using the pre 1.8.0 beta builds. It appears that a member of the Affinity QA team didn't get round to fully investigating this specific report posted in the bugs forums. We are very sorry for this oversight. Yours is one of a number of reports that I am posting this apology to, using an automated script. 

Now we have released 1.8.3 on all platforms containing many hundreds of bug fixes, and we hope your problem has already been fully addressed. If you still have this problem in the 1.8.3 release build, then the QA team would really appreciate you reporting again it in the relevant Bugs forum.

• Report a Bug in Affinity Designer
• Report a Bug in Affinity Photo
• Report a Bug in Affinity Publisher

Each of those links above contains instructions how best to report a bug to us. If that is what you already did in this thread just copy paste your original report into a new thread. We appreciate all the information that you have including sample files and screen shots to help us replicate your problem.

This thread has now been locked as the QA team are not following the threads to which this automatic reply is made, which is why we would appreciate a new bug report if you are still have this problem in the release build.