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Placed tinted vector art PDF rasterizes on export to PDF (w/ workaround)


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I am not sure if this is a bug or a feature (as there is a workaround), but it is entirely unexpected behavior.

I have a document that when exported to PDF, no matter the settings (including "Rasterize: Nothing"), would rasterize one of two PDF objects placed into the afpub doc. Neither is inside another frame, there are zero layers effects in the Publisher doc or the placed objects, both were exported from Designer, both are placed as using the new "passthrough" attribute (FINALLY!! :D), both are spot color (same profile, same as Publisher doc), the art in ONE of them is a tint of a single spot color common to the other PDF object. That is the one that gets rasterized.

The workaround is to set that placed PDF to "interpret" rather than "passthrough." Which, if you are like me, seems completely opposite of what it's actually doing.

Again, the only real difference that I can see is the tint of spot color. Yes it is a tint, not opacity. I don't want objects being flattened if they don't need to be.

The reason this is important is once rasterized my RIP has no control over the color, in which I have many of the PMS colors calibrated how I like them to look (eg, better match of solid color).

To be fair, this is the first and only occurrence I have seen of this, and I haven't tried to recreate it with other art. I may attempt to later tonight, but I thought this may be useful info to some.

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Recreated it using text to curves into separate files, one for solid, one for a tint of same PMS. These were made using Designer. This time both were rasterized, which I cannot fathom why. I suppose it's possible I had used an Adobe PDF earlier. I don't have all my art on me right now, though.

 

I would call this a bug, because the PDF export dialog clearly states that "Nothing will be rasterized" and that is just not always true. Also, how is it that "passthrough" doesn't pass through and "interpret" seems as though it does? Could be the thumbnail used as a placeholder is what is actually being passed?

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I bumped into a possibly similar issue.

I have a couple of vector logos with spot colors saved as PDFs. I place them in a Publisher doc (call it "Doc1") and they are set to "Passthrough" by default. When exported out to PDF, they both come through fine. Vector data with spots intact.

I open a new doc (call it "Doc2") and place "Doc1" as a linked document. When exported to PDF, both logos are rasterized to 4 color (I'm working in CMYK).

The "fix" is to set both placed PDFs to "Interpret" in "Doc1" (which I can do since they are both just vectors with no live fonts) and resave. With that done, "Doc2" will update the placed file and export them out with fine: vector data with spots intact.

As @StrawHousePig says, it's a very counterintuitive way to think about passthrough vs interpret.

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  • 2 years later...

I just ran into similar problem with a placed CMYK AI file which would always get rasterized when exporting to PDF.

I was able to get it to work by going to the options bar of the selection tool in Publisher with the object selected and under the "Layers:" dropdown choosing "Show All". Despite never having changed any of those layer options and all layers being on anyway, choosing "Show All" resolved the export problem.

EDIT: I found this thread using search, this is referring to Version 2.3.1

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