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PDF export options for Vector line work 02


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I believe I may have previously posted this in the wrong section, my apologies:

 

I am having a huge amount of difficulty getting a decent READABLE export from Publisher with my architectural vector files. They ALWAYS come out too dark and dominating in the image. All I want is the export to look exactly as it does on the layout sheet insde Publisher. It never does.

It would be wonderful if there was an export option that simply gave you EXACTLY what you see in the layout area of Publisher. After all, the images you drop in should be accurately represented when exported, RIGHT??? (This has nothing to do with Passthrough and Interpret by the way). Other PDF exporters give you much more detailed options for exporting linework. Publisher currently doesn't and it is a major headache and let-down for getting out decent presentation files.

Other software allows for things like Hairline / Medium / Normal export of vector linework. 

Would it be too much to ask for this? Or at least an option to export the same quality of image provided as when placed into the layout window when composing the pages please???

All purchased PDF viewers (except ADOBE) and all web browser PDF viewers for some reason default to 'enhancing' vector lineweights making the viweing experience totally incorrect. Is there a way to somehow correct this desperately annoying feauture or at least cmpensate for it by addng in some additional options for vector lineweight displays in the PDF export options menu? Not sure if it's a scaling issue of the original PDFs either..

See below examples of what the file should look like when placed in Publisher, and the exported file when viewed in ALL viewers except ADOBE, where there is an option to turn off this pathetic line enhancement feature.

Screenshot from Affinty Publisher.PNG

Foxit reader view.PNG

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Yes, I already know that Acrobat has a preference to turn of the 'enhanced lines' feature. But as described in my intial post, Acrobat is the ONLY reader (that I know of) that can do this. The point is that ALL other readers don't let you do this, and display the image incorrectly as a result. This is the problem.

Are you using a different PDF viewer? Which one? It doesn't really matter actually because the bulk of people who open a PDF just do so via their choice of web browser and don't have a specific PDF viewer to use. All of these web browsers display the vector lines incorrectly.

That is why I am suggesting a feature upgrade in the PDF export menu to compensate for this seemingly industry-wide adoption of enhanced vector line viewers, which is TOTALLY INCORRECT from the intent of the author.

Are you able to see the problem?..

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The problem isn't with APub or any Affinity app, but with the PDF viewers.

14 hours ago, moovme said:

Yes, I already know that Acrobat has a preference to turn of the 'enhanced lines' feature. But as described in my intial post, Acrobat is the ONLY reader (that I know of) that can do this. The point is that ALL other readers don't let you do this, and display the image incorrectly as a result. This is the problem.

In this case, you ask people to look at your PDF with Acrobat Reader with this option turned off, or you search a list of viewers that'll keep the lines fine...
That's not really different that asking the same like we do so the colour displays would use the ICC profile and we want people to see colour and effect as they should be.

 

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14 hours ago, moovme said:

All of these web browsers display the vector lines incorrectly.

I honestly don't know what you are wanting the view to be. I opened your PDF in my web browser (safari) and looked at the 'incorrect' view. Yes the lines are thick, but they are only one or two pixels wide. What do you want to have displayed? A fraction of a pixel, obviously cannot be done. 

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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7 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

I honestly don't know what you are wanting the view to be. I opened your PDF in my web browser (safari) and looked at the 'incorrect' view. Yes the lines are thick, but they are only one or two pixels wide. What do you want to have displayed? A fraction of a pixel, obviously cannot be done. 

Perhaps I am looking at this wrong way, but I thought the whole point of PDF files is to preserve the original file format placed into the document to be published. I.e. raster images appear as pixel based images, and vector files retain their vector characteristics. Therefore when viewed in PDF format these characterisitcs don't change, and that is the whole point.

If you open my sample. afpub file I posted in Publisher you will see exactly how the image SHOULD look. When exported and viewed in one of the plethora of PDF viewers out there, the image is auto-corrected by the default (and INCORRECT) vector line enhancement feature that they all have. Vector graphics don't have pixels, and therefore can adopt any lineweight you choose.

Does that make sense??...

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8 hours ago, Wosven said:

And the file is just a A5... Perhapsat a larger size (but in this case the PDF will be heavier), it would be correct at 100% view...

I made a custom page size to fit the presentation style I required (286.5 x 121.4mm, not quite A5), and it reads incorrectly at 100%.  If scaled up 200% or more then things get a little clearer, but they should be reading correctly at 100% to begin with. 

I seem to be having a very difficult time gettng my message across here. It appears that all PDF viewers (with very minor exceptions) default to using a vector line enhancement feature, making vector lines appear MUCH heavier and darker than they actually are. ADOBE ACROBAT is the only viewer I'm aware of that allows the user to turn off this utterly worthless feature. 

So again, all I am asking for is for Affinity to add in some specific vector line options into the PDF export menu to help compensate for this industry-wide mess that exists with all these junk PDF viewers that screw up the correct viewing experience of vector-based PDF files. Am I asking too much????

I know very well it's not a problem with Affinity Publisher itself.

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7 hours ago, moovme said:

Vector graphics don't have pixels, and therefore can adopt any lineweight you choose.

But the screens have pixels...

6 hours ago, moovme said:

I seem to be having a very difficult time gettng my message across here.

No, we understand you, but since most PDF viewers will enhance the lines — or use a simpler rendering engine —, you'll have to work with it.

And I'll repeat, since you miss it: ask people vieving your files to use Acrobat with this setting. That'll be easier than asking them to use another one, less known, on different OS.
For example, a few years ago I had to ask people to use Acrobat since other reader would display incorrectly colors if some blend mode were used in a PDF, and if they validate with wrong colors, they are disappointed when they get the printed version with different ones.

Your A5 file isn't readable at such a small size, but it's an astute way, since it's vector, to store and give a file with a light weight. It's readable (text and details) at 300-400%. If I had to compare this to a raster logo, I would say it's logical than a web logo with less pixels than theone for print get less details, and is displayed poorly.

Another option would be to export at a larger size (for example: ×4 and only 72 PPI). This way, a view at 100% would be perfect (perhaps it would be ok at only ×3 or ×2...) and explain that only viewing at 100% will give the correct line width.
The problem is the same, but it's easier to understand this way for clientsless tech savy, than having to explain that the 100% view is wrong unless tweaking Acrobat or zooming to x%.

Sample_x4-72.pdf

 

NB. To get a correct result, I had to put the image layer at the bottom, and the blend mode of the embedded PDF layers to "normal", since the blend mode "multiply" end up with them being rasterized.

 

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15 hours ago, moovme said:

Perhaps I am looking at this wrong way, but I thought the whole point of PDF files is to preserve the original file format placed into the document to be published. I.e. raster images appear as pixel based images, and vector files retain their vector characteristics.

When I view the file (at 100%) the thin lines have to have at least one pixel width. Otherwise they would be invisible. They are extremely thin but the computer screen shows a pixel or two depending on where they are. When I zoom in using Safari I see the lines remaining 1 pixel wide even if they being viewed at 200, 300, or 400 %.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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3 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

When I view the file (at 100%) the thin lines have to have at least one pixel width. Otherwise they would be invisible. 

I understand that. The contradiction to that comes in because the file reads perfectly correct at 100% in the original Publisher file (on a screen with pixels), so why can it not be viewed in exactly the same way when exported and viewed inside a PDF viewer???

Logic dictates if it reads correctly at 100% in the original file, then the real issue is with the PDF viewers (I'm assuming), and NOT the page size of the file itself.

Does everyone understand what I'm actually asking for here?.. additional options to the PDF export menu inside Publisher to compensate for this incredibly annoying line enhancment feauture of the viewers (except ADOBE).

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41 minutes ago, moovme said:

... the file reads perfectly correct at 100% in the original Publisher file (on a screen with pixels), so why can it not be viewed in exactly the same way when exported and viewed inside a PDF viewer???

I am going to say that it is the PDF viewer that is at fault. The actual thin lines are actually thin in the pdf file. It is the rendering of the PDF Viewer that is causing the problems. 

There may be some missing fairy dust in the export of a PDF from the Publisher Document which is mostly just a couple of embedded PDFs. Those PDFs are placed at about third and a quarter size so that plays in to the problem as well. Perhaps if they were rendered at that size things would be better, I just don't know.

Post Script, I used to live about a mile away from there.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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On 11/7/2021 at 3:45 PM, moovme said:

I seem to be having a very difficult time gettng my message across here. It appears that all PDF viewers (with very minor exceptions) default to using a vector line enhancement feature, making vector lines appear MUCH heavier and darker than they actually are. ADOBE ACROBAT is the only viewer I'm aware of that allows the user to turn off this utterly worthless feature. 

Other PDF Editors/Viewers which enable you to turn-Off the thin line enhancement:
- PDF-XChange Editor
- Foxit PDF Editor
- Foxit PDF Reader
- Nitro Pro
Basically, any more advanced editor/viewer has this setting.
Note: the default setting for this in Acrobat is On, just like the others.
 

On 11/7/2021 at 3:45 PM, moovme said:

So again, all I am asking for is for Affinity to add in some specific vector line options into the PDF export menu to help compensate for this industry-wide mess that exists with all these junk PDF viewers that screw up the correct viewing experience of vector-based PDF files. Am I asking too much????

I know very well it's not a problem with Affinity Publisher itself.

There is no setting which can be passed by Affinity apps to the PDF viewer to change this.
The reason the "thin line enhancement" setting exists is to help compensate for users not having enough display resolution to display the lines at a given zoom level.
On a fairly high-resolution display your sample.pdf looks fine.
With a 266ppi display at 300% I can see all the individual lines in the lower building, on a laptop.
So the solution is simple - just get a huge high-resolution, high-ppi display. ;-)

I say that in jest, but given the type of drawings you work with it may be worth it.

 

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14 minutes ago, LibreTraining said:

Other PDF Editors and Viewers which enable you to turn-Off the thin line enhancement:
- PDF-XChange Editor
- Foxit PDF Editor
- Foxit PDF Reader
- Nitro Pro
Basically, any more advanced editor/viewer has this setting.
Note: the default setting for this in Acrobat is On, just like the others

I have Foxit PDF Editor (2019) and it does not have an option in the preferences to turn off the vector line enhancement. I even called Foxit support to discuss this, and even the latest version of their paid software does not have this feature.

I can appreciate a reason for doing this for ancient displays, but quite honeslty who uses an ancient display these days?? I can deal with the viewers having this function, but there is NO logic is this day and age to use it as the default viewing setting. That's just ridiculous from my pont of view. Maybe I'm alone in that thought. 

I keep going back to the same point; if Publisher shows the vector graphics correctly when the file is being made, that is the indiciation of how the finished product is going to look. Period. So why don't the viewers acknowledge this? Let's get this thing updated already!!!!

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36 minutes ago, moovme said:

I have Foxit PDF Editor (2019) and it does not have an option in the preferences to turn off the vector line enhancement. I even called Foxit support to discuss this, and even the latest version of their paid software does not have this feature.

Oh, you are right - was looking too fast - at the smoothing option.
 

36 minutes ago, moovme said:

I keep going back to the same point; if Publisher shows the vector graphics correctly when the file is being made, that is the indiciation of how the finished product is going to look. Period. So why don't the viewers aknowledge this? Let's get this thing updated already!!!!

But APub does not always display exactly what the "finished product" is going to look like.
It is adjusting the display to show you lines which if set to actual scale would be less than a pixel (on that particular display, at that particular zoom level).
This is exactly what the PDF editor/viewers are attempting to do with the thin lines setting.
This also happens with particular fonts which have very thin points in their contours.
The thin spots can be less than a pixel and it just disappears onscreen.
The fonts may have built-in hinting which will compensate and widen the stem.
And the PDF viewers will also try to compensate (this same issue has come up related to fonts).

The only way to get true WYSIWYG is by having enough resolution to show exactly what is there.
It is the exact same same situation as the font hinting distortions, and on Windows the ClearType changes in text color, and on Macs the increased text color (darker) text at smaller sizes caused by their built-in hinting algorithms. All are distortions caused by software apps trying to compensate for the mis-match between actual dimensions being forced into a pixel grid.
All of these issues go away when there is enough pixel density.
If your screen had the same resolution as your printer (or PDF) none of this would happen.

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Yes, I am aware of the base resolution issue of the layout sheet onto which the images are placed. I had hoped that 300dpi was way more than enough for a tiny little page layout like the one I am using when I first set up the document.

I feel like the issue is actually a combination of overcompensation via the default vector line enhancement render settings of the PDF viewers, AND also perhaps a scaling issue occuring as I reduce the image down to fit the page layout. 

Either way, there are very definite things that can, and should be done about this incorrect and highly undesirable effect.

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  • 1 year later...

@moovme 

Did you ever find a resolution to this problem?  I am also experiencing the same thing, and it was helpful to read through this discussion and know that I wasn't the only one finding this frustrating.  

I'm a little late to the party, but I did find a workaround.  Changing the lines to grey instead of a true black seems to read much better on my various devices without having to change any settings. This might not be a good option for architectural drawings, but it works for art & sketches and might help someone else.  Using recently released Designer v2 and exporting pdfs from Publisher (v2).

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Sadly like a lot of my requests, they fall on deaf ears and are ignored. I’m happy you have found a suitable work around for your needs :)

I never bothered to upgrade to V2 for the simple fact that Affinity simply doesn’t add in the required features / upgrades to mitigate the user frustration, and hence I use Affinity products less and less as a result. For the money they are good products, but for features that people actually want and need, ADOBE absolutely crushes them. 

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