PDF export issue with KDP self-publishing

[MCBPub]

I have been converting books from 8.5" by 11" (softcover) to 8.25" by 11" (hardcover) as this is the closest size offered by Amazon KDP when it recently introduced a hardcover option.
With books less than 150 pages I have been able to get away with just uploading the same interior file and everything works out, but anything with more pages needs a larger gutter margin, which requires some reformatting.

I have one book where there is one page that fails to convert. On the first page of the Preface there is some text plus a map in svg format (I have also tried using jpg) and the map title as artistic text. There are also standard page elements, a header, footer (page number) and a horizontal line.

The book appears to produce an appropriate pdf with all pages OK. However, when this is uploaded to KDP the Preface text does not always show in the online Previewer and the one time I had a copy printed, it did not print the text, just the map. 

KDP support has told me that the text has been produced as "clipping paths," which does not mean much to me, but I assume it means the text has been produced as graphics. It appears this is only happening on one page. Clipping paths, I am told, are not printed. The same manuscript file worked fine as a softcover, although I might have introduced something when reformatting to fit the new size.

I am using standard MS-supplied Verdana in a text frame on the page and the pdf Properties/Fonts for the book pdf file show all font variants to be present, listed as (Embedded) or (Embedded Subset), TrueType(CID), Encoding: Identity-H. I have not found anywhere in Affinity where there are any font embedding options or text as text / text as graphics controls. I assume these are implied somewhere, but does anyone know where?

In case the problem was being caused by some interaction between objects, I cleared the Master on that one page and rebuilt it from scratch, making sure that there was no overlap between objects.

I have tried a couple of pdf formats, but mostly X-1a which KDP list as their preferred format. I have tried all 3 Rasterize settings when exporting (all, none and unsupported properties) to no avail.

Does this mean anything to anyone? Any suggestions as to what I can try next? Any help very gratefully received! The book is ready to be published as a hardcover, apart from this one page...

Thank you in advance!
Mark

[Callum]

Hi Mark,

Welcome to the forums

I can't see anything obvious that would cause this from your screenshot but if i'm honest I'm not overly familiar with KDP. Would you be willing to provide a copy of the file or just copy the text into a new file and send that to me so I can take a look at the text object itself? If you would rather not post it publicly let me know and I can provide a link to our DropBox.

Thanks
C

[Dazmondo77]

You could maybe try creating a new layer and placing the problem text on that layer before creating your PDF, which may be enough to nudge it to your desired format?

Maybe go further and create another layer and put your Map.svg and any other curves or whatever on that layer -- maybe worth a shot?

[MCBPub]

Hello @Callum, thanks, happy to provide a copy of the file, could you let me have the DropBox link please?

[MCBPub]

Hello  @Dazmondo77 thanks for the suggestion, I will try playing around with layers and see if it has the desired effect!