Please add PDF/X-3:2003 support for RGB color space with flattened files

[Wosven]

Win7 and Win10 use the same convertion library: PDFlib+PDI 9.3.1-i (Win32)

[Wosven]

3 minutes ago, nawkboy said:

I should also mention I only have Affinity Publisher without any of the other Affinity applications. It is always possible the installers for one of the other Affinity applications installs a critical library the Affinity Publisher installer failed to install. This is the sort of thing that can easily get overlooked in testing.

I have the 3 regular apps on Win10, and the 6 (regular & bêta on Win7), but I'm not sure they share code, or common files.

[Wosven]

It's really a big bug, if the apps of the same version can't even provide the same features, depending of unknown properties. 🥵

[nawkboy]

Good to know I’m not crazy. I thought I might become so with this issue.

[Wosven]

Trying to replace a missing font in APub can make you crazy... since you can't select variants for a missing font, you can't search it!

But the preflight panel will indicate there's a FontX-Bold missing, for example...

I just wanted to create a PDF with the PDF/X-3 RGB option on Win7, where I have an Helvetica, but different from yours... and I can't even replace it.

[Dan C]

Thanks for the detailed information provided by all users here - it's certainly appreciated and has made bug testing this issue much easier for me!

I can confirm there appears to be an issue with M1 devices and exporting to the 'PDF X' presets. Using a Mac Mini M1 running Big Sur here and I'm seeing the same options for the colour space of the exported PDF.

As far as I understand, this is unexpected as the RGB option should be here also, I'm getting this logged with our developers now with a high priority to be fixed ASAP.

I hope this helps

[RM f/g]

FYI: on MacOS 10.14.6 (Mojave) I get no RGB option in pdf/X-3:2003 in APub 10.4 nor in 10.5.1282 beta.

Document colour RGB or CMYK, no difference.

 

[Wosven]

1 minute ago, Dan C said:

Using a Mac Mini M1 running Big Sur

Thanks, but you can add also the same problem on Win10 Entreprise version 1809.

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, Wosven said:

Trying to replace a missing font in APub can make you crazy... since you can't select variants for a missing font, you can't search it!

Perhaps I just don't understand that, but I can search for missing fonts. This is from clicking the cog on the Find field and choosing Format:

[Dan C]

3 minutes ago, Wosven said:

but you can add also the same problem on Win10 Entreprise version 1809.

Thanks for letting me know! I'm running Windows 10 Pro version 20H2 (build 19042.1526) and this option correctly appears for me - so I'll be sure to update the log with this information now

[thomaso]

6 minutes ago, Dan C said:

As far as I understand, this is unexpected as the RGB option should be here also, I'm getting this logged with our developers now with a high priority to be fixed ASAP.

Since this thread in Feature Requests is quite long meanwhile you might consider moving it to a Bugs forum?

[Wosven]

7 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

but I can search for missing fonts

...but how can I replace specifically the bold, italic, regular and bold-italic?

Impossible to specify the one I want, and I need to be precise in the searching field since Helvetica are precise (55 Roman, 56 Italic, 75 Bold, etc.)

[NotMyFault]

Coming back to the other topic: transparent areas.

Using Photo to inspect the file with channels panel selected to alpha channel, there are indeed lots of transparent areas on almost every page: (non-white area).

you can do the same test in publisher with help of a channels mixer adjustment.

 

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, Wosven said:

but how can I replace specifically the bold, italic, regular and bold-italic?

Possibly by specifying them in the Font Weight field?

I cannot test as I do not have any documents with missing fonts.

You also said:

Quote

and I need to be precise in the searching field since Helvetica are precise (55 Roman, 56 Italic, 75 Bold, etc.)

True, but how many of those do you have in that document? If you have 50 different ones, then you need to be precise. If you have only a few, you can selectively click the Replace button rather than using Replace All.

 

[Wosven]

17 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Possibly by specifying them in the Font Weight field?

It's grey out.

18 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I cannot test as I do not have any documents with missing fonts.

Did you tested the packaged zip in the thread?

[Wosven]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Possibly by specifying them in the Font Weight field?

The missing Helvetica isn't listed, only the one I use for visual replacement.

And if I can find an Helvetica in the "PDF" option, I can't choose variants, or (un)select italic.

[Wosven]

Other bugs with this PDF/X-3 exportation:

• The ability to export in RVB is bugged, it only provide the desktop printer's profile, and not all the list I usually have using other PDF versions able to export to RGB (or the document's profile).
• And the PDF produced, with the "convert color mode" selected, convert to CMYK instead of RGB.

 

At least, there's no transparency, and this one is what we expected from the export.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Wosven said:

Did you tested the packaged zip in the thread?

No. I'll try that. Thanks.

[lacerto]

On 2/25/2022 at 6:19 PM, Dan C said:

Thanks for the detailed information provided by all users here - it's certainly appreciated and has made bug testing this issue much easier for me!

I can confirm there appears to be an issue with M1 devices and exporting to the 'PDF X' presets. Using a Mac Mini M1 running Big Sur here and I'm seeing the same options for the colour space of the exported PDF.

As far as I understand, this is unexpected as the RGB option should be here also, I'm getting this logged with our developers now with a high priority to be fixed ASAP.

I hope this helps

Whether RGB is available as color space for an Affinity app when exporting to PDF/X-3 (or PDF/X-4) depends on whether it can access the installed device RGB color profiles that have stock specific specs (so e.g. generic profiles like sRGB will not show as available RGB color profiles and do not trigger availability of RGB color space when exporting).

[Dan C]

3 hours ago, Lagarto said:

UPDATE: Considering what seems to trigger the availability of RGB color mode PDF/X-3 and PDF/X-4 based exports, this is not necessarily a bug, But the apps should definitely be able to look for profiles in common system locations, like other apps (instead of being user and app specific).

Many thanks for the above information - I'm going to provide this to our developers now to help continue the investigation, as it seems to have sparked discussion internally as to the expected behaviours. For example InDesign from a 'clean install' on an M1 device is able to export an RGB PDF/X document without the need to install separate profiles, whereas Affinity does not.

I'll be sure to update this thread with any further information I am provided

[lacerto]

46 minutes ago, Dan C said:

is able to export an RGB PDF/X document

I think it is able to do by virtue of being able to use ROMM-RGB as an  RGB profile when device-specific profiles are not available (I have no clue why this profile can be used but e.g. sRGB or Adobe RGB cannot). All other RGB profiles that I can use (checked this on three devices, including macOS) are device RGB profiles.

[nawkboy]

I would suggest a fresh install should always include whichever RGB color profiles are preferred by LuLu, Amazon KDP, and other major print on demand book printers who prefer RGB.

It would also be very nice if Affinity could write an article, FAQ entry, or other appropriate documentation regarding how to best produce an optimal file for these POD companies.

Some of the links earlier in this thread provide the details on LuLu. Amazon KDP has similar guideline documents.

[Wosven]

29 minutes ago, nawkboy said:

I would suggest a fresh install should always include whichever RGB color profiles are preferred by LuLu, Amazon KDP, and other major print on demand book printers who prefer RGB.

Major profiles used on the different continents sound nice, and it's what is included today.

But you can't ask Affinity to do a survey to check and include profiles for different companies, major or not. 

 

It would be better to ask for:

• exportable presets that we/printer/etc. could share (and also easily use in the differents apps, without needing to open an app, display the preset and redo the same in another Affinity app).
• some _print_preset_package_ we could also share, and this would contains an export preset, color profile, some file preset (?)...
• …any useful idea we can come up with

 

• The ability to export a specific colour profile included in a file (for now, you can see it if a document using this same profile is also open in the app, but it will disappear once the original document is closed).

[nawkboy]

I like what @Wosven suggests with the caveat that any product company should strive to fully understand the ecosystem within which their offering is used. This includes maintaining awareness of significant scenarios and accounting for them during development.

Ensuring the implementation is not locked to this or that printer makes perfect sense. I can see how the ability to import and export settings is a great idea. That said, Affinity is still the underdog and can’t assume printers will provide Affinity specific settings like they do for Adobe. This isn’t fair or ideal, but it is the current market reality.

I don’t know this ecosystem, but I suspect there are only a few combinations of commercial digital printers and pre-press pipelines that are in common usage worth focusing on. 

[Wosven]

15 minutes ago, nawkboy said:

Affinity is still the underdog and can’t assume printers will provide Affinity specific settings

Today, people mainly send me files made with ID, after I send them technical informations. They can either download and install the provided colour profile and a joboptions (or follow the manual steps and screenshots), and easily export with the right settings.

They are mainly agencies, so they should be use to this... but really, they are not better at following instructions than smaller shops 🙄

At least, smaller shops are happy to learn to manage profiles and export settings, so they won't have to pay someone to convert/correct their files.

 

Most coworkers use ID, so no problem with them and their files. Some marketing people use Affinity apps. We had to set up a specific workflow to correct and convert those files and finally get acceptable ones, we can use in the final tools.

 

We woudn't mind adding specific "how to" and preset files if the apps were able to export correctly from the start.

Others company needing correct files wouldn't mind either, since spending time checking files, and trying to give the necessary explanations to get the correct result can be tricky.

As you can see is those forum, people use and think of as many pathes as possible to do the same things! But for debugging, we always need to redo the full path, and search for the problem...

If I hadn't to check 3 versions of the same file when the graphist doesn't pay attention, instead of using the same process/preset as last time he send me a file, I could do more interesting tasks. I'm sure I'm not the only one that find sharable presets/profiles can help.