Importing Pdf by drag and drop only with 72 dpi possible?

[danra]

Hey @all,

bought the Affinity suite many months ago but was afraid to start the move from Adobe programme suite. Finally did it a few weeks ago and am so happy with a whole lot of functions you implemented! That is so great! Will never go back.
Now I might need some help from the community.
I created a Pubisher document with many dozens of pdfs, that are imported by drag and drop. They were made in another programm and are sheets of music for it will be a song book.
When I open the pdf in Affinity Designer/Publisher directly, it will show vectors and everything is fine and high quality (only the fonts will be different - but it proofs, that the pdf should show much more than only 72 dpi in Affinity).

Though the original pdf should be easily printable, my ressource manager in this Publisher document shows the resolution with only 72 dpi.

What can I do to improve the import quality of the document?
 

Best,

Daniel

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, Daniel.

I can drag PDF files from File Explorer into my Publisher document and the original DPI is maintained.

What OS do you use, and what application are you dragging the files from?

[danra]

Thank you for answering, Walt. I am using Affinity Publisher 1.10.4.1198 for Win.
Don't know the programm this pdf files were created in. I dragged them from my explorer to the Publisher document.
Please see the screenshots I have pasted. The first one shows the dragged pdf and the second one shows the same pdf, when I open it in Publisher.

Daniel

 

[danra]

And something else I recognized: I made two vector drawings in Affinity Designer and exported them as pdf files. Then imported them in the same Publisher document.
One of it is being displayed as 72 dpi. The other one is being listed with 300 dpi. (Explaining that I realize, that I no longer need to work this circuitous in Affinity. Should only take the vectors and push them over to Publisher - but anyway, I still do not understand the behaviour of the app).

Is it possible to set the import dpi of a vector drawing? Is that a general setting or do I have to set that while importing?

Daniel

[walt.farrell]

26 minutes ago, danra said:

Is it possible to set the import dpi of a vector drawing? Is that a general setting or do I have to set that while importing?

"Import" is a vague term. You might mean drag/drop, or copy/paste, or File > Place, or sometimes File > Open. When you use Place, you have a choice of simply clicking the Place tool on the page and letting the file be imported at its native size & DPI or of dragging the cursor to give it the size you want, which will also affect the DPI.

38 minutes ago, danra said:

Please see the screenshots I have pasted. T

Those screenshots look like you have zoomed in, and as though the text has been rasterized.

It would help to have a sample .afpub document into which you have dragged the PDF, and the PDF itself. Also information on anything you may have done to the PDF after you dragged it into the Publisher document.

[danra]

Hey Walt, thanks for answering.

I will paste the files here. I found out, that it was layouted in Microsoft Word (which shocked me a bit - I thought he would use another app. Anyway I received more than one hundred of these files and checked the first like this: I opened the pdf in afdesigner and saw when zooming in, that there were no pixels visible - so I concluded, that it is easily printable. I also told the guy who made the pdf files to save them as pdf-x3 (which he did).
Now while doing the layout around the prelayouted pdf files I dragged and dropped them in, file after file. Did no further check on them. Today I realized, that all of them are being display with visible pixels and having only 72 dpi.

Again, when I open the pdf itself, I can not see any pixel. And I can even convert them to vectors. That tells me, that there are enough information in this pdf file.
But honestly speaking I do not want to open up every single file itself to have this result. Because it is a lot of work and might cause some font or other displacements.

Please see the documents attached.

Best,

Daniel

2_3Blessed be your name_Bridge.pdf Song_Testfile.afpub

[danra]

Something off-topic: Is there a way to have a deep check on a pdf file before sending it to the printing shop besides using Acrobat Professional? Downloaded a freeware app but it shows some poor results.
If I wanna do a complete shift from Adobe to Serif I would miss such an app. Is there a tool in afpub that will do this check for me? Or is it planned to be added one day? That would be awesome.

 

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, danra said:

Please see the documents attached.

Thanks for the files.

Looking at the .afpub file (I switched from mm to inches for convenience) I can see this in the Context Toolbar:

I can also see (from Spread Setup and from the Ruler) that the document page is 4.134 x 5.827 inches.

Note that Publisher has scaled the PDF up so that it fills the entire page, but if you click that Original Size button you get a page that looks like this:

Looking at the PDF with Adobe Acrobat Reader, it says the PDF page size is 4.13 x 5.83 inches. And looking at it with PDF-XChange Editor, I see that the page size is 297.7 x 419.6 pt. As a pt is 1/72 of an inch, that matches the 4.13 x 5.83 given by Acrobat Reader. And it gives us the 72 dpi that Publisher is showing for the original dpi of the PDF file.

When you drag the file in, or Open it, you get a page size that is right for your document, but since it's only 297.7 x 419.6 pt in original size, that means that it has been scaled up by the 417% shown in my first screenshot, if we consider the calculated dpi.

You should be able to ignore that 72 dpi, I think.

In your screenshots above, you've shown some differences between Opening the file and dragging it. But I think that might be due to several factors, and maybe some interaction between them. The original dpi values may play a role (72 for the one you Opened, 300 for the other one), and how much you zoomed, and (possibly) your Publisher Preferences.

If you open your Preferences, and click on Performance, I think you might have View Quality set to Nearest Neighbor. Please check that, and if it is set to Nearest Neighbor, try Bilinear (Best Quality) instead. I can get results similar to yours if I use Nearest Neighbor.

 

 

[danra]

8 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I can also see (from Spread Setup and from the Ruler) that the document page is 4.134 x 5.827 inches.

Note that Publisher has scaled the PDF up so that it fills the entire page, but if you click that Original Size button you get a page that looks like this:

This size is a regular DIN A6 (105 x 148 mm).
I understand, what you did and can reproduce, but I have another conclusion. You said, that Publisher did the scale, but also that the pdf has the same inch size than the Publisher document. I rather think, that during the process of exporting it to pdf this happend - what I do not understand as well, because the guy told me he worked on a DIN A6 sized file in Word.

Another thing I did not understand from your answer. You mentioned the scale of 417%. And that you can click the "original size" button to shrink it down. I did the same.
417% of 72 dpi is 300 dpi. And to get this dense dots Publisher will do the shrink - totally understand that one.
But this means to me, that the DIN A6 sized pdf is only 72 dpi, what would cause a poor printed song book.

On the other hand there still is the fact, that Publisher can open the pdf directly and you can use the text as text and can even vectorize it. And I can open the pdf file in any browser to view it. There I can mark any word, which means, there are no pixels in the file. Somehow I need to get Publisher to import the file in a higher resolution (even if it is saved with only 72 dpi).
And the zoomed in views of Publisher and Firefox browser are also showing differences in sharpness. Publisher left side, Firefox right side:

 

I must admit, that the screenshot added visible pixels to the Firefox screenshot, which are not visible on my screen.

8 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

You should be able to ignore that 72 dpi, I think.

Do you mean, that I can give the file out for printing? Actually I doubt that.

8 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

If you open your Preferences, and click on Performance, I think you might have View Quality set to Nearest Neighbor. Please check that, and if it is set to Nearest Neighbor, try Bilinear (Best Quality) instead. I can get results similar to yours if I use Nearest Neighbor.

Checked this also. Already had bilinear chosen. But thanks for thinking in every direction.

To me the answer is behind my statement which I have underlined above: Somehow I need to get Publisher to import the file in a higher resolution.

Thanks again, Walt!
Daniel

[Dan C]

Hi @danra,

Thanks for your files provided!

When using File > Place in Publisher with PDF files, by default they are set to 'Passthrough' mode, which essentially displays a bitmap of the PDF file, instead of the contents directly to ensure the Affinity app displays the PDF file as accurately as possible.

If you select the placed PDF file, then in the Context Toolbar change the PDF Passthrough to Interpret, you should find the text no longer appears pixelated at high zoom levels.

I hope this helps

[walt.farrell]

Thanks, @Dan C.  I didn't even think about the rasterization effect of Passthrough. 

[danra]

Well, thanks a lot. This explains at least part of it.
That is the kind of function I used a lot in InDesign.

Does that mean, there are somewhere vectors or real fonts in the background, but Publisher only shows a bmp to make sure, everything is at the right place? Your gif shows what happens to the font, if you select 'interpret' but do not have the correct font installed, right? When I do the same (having installed the font), there is no move - it only gains sharpness.

To sum up for myself:
1. The pdf was saved with 72 dpi and this is being shown in Publisher also.
2. I can set the placement configuration to 'interpret', then the original font (vector based) will be used (but I need to make sure, nothing will be moved).

If I don't remove the 'passthrough' preset, will Publisher use for printing or exporting the bmp or the original pdf file?
I still do not understand, why Publisher would tell me, that there is an issue (warning: 72 dpi), if the low pixels only were for preview reason.

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by danra

[Dan C]

1 hour ago, danra said:

Does that mean, there are somewhere vectors or real fonts in the background, but Publisher only shows a bmp to make sure, everything is at the right place? Your gif shows what happens to the font, if you select 'interpret' but do not have the correct font installed, right? When I do the same (having installed the font), there is no move - it only gains sharpness.

That's correct, by default the app displays placed PDFs in the 'Passthrough' mode, which means the Affinity app doesn't directly 'read/convert' the PDF file to Affinity compatible layers and simply displays a bitmap version to provide the most accurate results possible - this is especially useful in situations such as this, as you may provide a PDF to a user who doesn't have all the fonts used in your document (as I don't have Roboto installed), but Passthrough ensures they see the same PDF as you do.

1 hour ago, danra said:

If I don't remove the 'passthrough' preset, will Publisher use for printing or exporting the bmp or the original pdf file?

If Passthrough is set, the bitmap preview of the PDF will be used both within Publisher and when exporting.
Edit: The bitmap is used within Publisher, but the original PDF file is used when exporting. See my below post for more info.

1 hour ago, danra said:

I still do not understand, why Publisher would tell me, that there is an issue (warning: 72 dpi), if the low pixels only were for preview reason.

Unfortunately I'm not seeing this warning in your .afpub file provided - can you please expand on where/when you are seeing this warning?

[danra]

I can see two things that make me nervous when I am about to send a pdf/X-3 to a printing shop:
1. When I open the "ressource manager" (having German language setted, I do not know the exact term on your app - it is on documents, the last thing to choose) it shows 72 dpi.
2. The "checklist" tells me, it has some issues with the "PDF export version". It says, that the placed PDF is PDF/X-3:2002 and this is the same I chose on the export menue.
By the way, here is the same solution shown, that you explained before: "switch to interpreted representation".
Please see the screenshot attached.

And after I did the fix and changed to "interpret", the ressource manager still shows 72 dpi - the checklist will no longer show any issue.

[danra]

I'm allergic to "72 dpi" because I've been creating print products for years and almost never web content 😁

[thomaso]

12 minutes ago, Dan C said:

If Passthrough is set, the bitmap preview of the PDF will be used both within Publisher and when exporting.

This appears misleading. A placed PDF containing vector data (e.g. text) does export those as vector even if set to Passthrough which causes the vector being displayed rasterized in the layout before export.

In the attached sample a PDF another PDF was placed twice with different size in the layout. For both placements Affinity reports an according DPI and scaling factor. For the large 24 dpi / 1250 % and for the small copy (top right) 72 dpi / 417 %. Nevertheless, the resulting PDF file still contains text as a vector. Inspite the resulting PDF still contains text as vector, though, if placed again in Affinity with Passtrough, it gets displayed rasterized again, as its two instances were before export.

v1105 passthrough pdf.pdf

[Dan C]

16 minutes ago, thomaso said:

This appears misleading. A placed PDF containing vector data (e.g. text) does export those as vector even if set to Passthrough which causes the vector being displayed rasterized in the layout before export.

Apologies, you're quite correct - I've spoken further with the team here and I appear to have misunderstood how the Passthrough function works on export.

When displaying the file in Publisher set to Passthrough, we will use the embedded bitmap version of the PDF file to display this as accurately as possible.

When exporting the document, the Passthrough PDF will be embedded in the new PDF file and (as the name suggests) will simply be 'passed through' to the new PDF, meaning Affinity doesn't interpret/convert any of the layers for the placed documents, and the PDF should be the same as it was when you received/created the file.

In cases such as the above, the Passthrough PDF will contain vector data, as it was originally exported, before being placed in Affinity.

I'll be sure to update my above comment to reflect this

_________________________________________________________________

27 minutes ago, danra said:

1. When I open the "ressource manager" (having German language setted, I do not know the exact term on your app - it is on documents, the last thing to choose) it shows 72 dpi.

24 minutes ago, danra said:

I'm allergic to "72 dpi" because I've been creating print products for years and almost never web content 😁

I can confirm that the Resource Manager will always display a DPI value for placed content and the default for a PDF file without any pixel content is 72DPI, however as Walt confirmed above, this value is irrelevant in your document as it does not contain any Pixel content. The text will be exported as vector text objects, meaning there is no DPI assigned to the objects. This means you can safely ignore the DPI value shown here.

33 minutes ago, danra said:

The "checklist" tells me, it has some issues with the "PDF export version". It says, that the placed PDF is PDF/X-3:2002 and this is the same I chose on the export menue.

The Preflight warning you are seeing here is due to the version of the PDF file you have placed, cannot be passed through to the PDF version that the preflight checks against by default (PDF/X-1a:2003).

Essentially certain PDF versions cannot retain that version when exported within a different version, which is the warning you're seeing.

As you've mentioned, setting this file to Interpret resolves the issue, as the PDF is no longer bound to the original format version it was saved under - however you can also change the Preflight profile to check for a different PDF version, that doesn't show this error -

I hope this clears things up

[danra]

That is way more feedback than I expected. Thank you so much. I appreciate that so much!

To me everything is clear now and I will end this thread with a wish/question:
Is it possible to find some other words to display in the column "DPI resolution" in the resource manager in this particular case? "72 dpi" does not do a good job here, imho

You as a team did a great job to support my newby activities, what encourages me even more to keep going with Affininty Suite.

All the best and keep up the good work!
Daniel

 

[Dan C]

No problem at all, more than happy to help

31 minutes ago, danra said:

Is it possible to find some other words to display in the column "DPI resolution" in the resource manager in this particular case? "72 dpi" does not do a good job here, imho

I'll certainly pass your feedback through to the dev team to see if we can make this clearer in the future, as I agree this is not the best information to provide for vector based PDFs!

[MikeW]

1 hour ago, Dan C said:

No problem at all, more than happy to help

I'll certainly pass your feedback through to the dev team to see if we can make this clearer in the future, as I agree this is not the best information to provide for vector based PDFs!

Why show dpi at all for placed pdfs?

I would think a "N/A" is the best Serif can do in this situation. This would also apply to other vector-based file formats when placed (.eps, .svg, etc.).

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, MikeW said:

Why show dpi at all for placed pdfs?

They can contain raster into, too, can't they?

[MikeW]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

They can contain raster into, too, can't they?

Sure. And these pdfs can, and often do, contain raster objects of varying dpi. So what should Serif then report? Lowest dpi? Highest dpi? Average the dpi of all raster objects?

A pdf has no inherent dpi. None.

[strt]

On 5/4/2022 at 3:56 PM, danra said:

That is way more feedback than I expected. Thank you so much. I appreciate that so much!

To me everything is clear now and I will end this thread with a wish/question:
Is it possible to find some other words to display in the column "DPI resolution" in the resource manager in this particular case? "72 dpi" does not do a good job here, imho

You as a team did a great job to support my newby activities, what encourages me even more to keep going with Affininty Suite.

All the best and keep up the good work!
Daniel

 

@danra Gibt es dazu mittlerweile eine Lösung? Ohne jetzt durch den ganzen Thread hagenau zu gehen. Ich hab das selbe Problem. Bei InDesign scheint das nicht zu sein.

 

LG Jonas

[Dan C]

Hallo @strt,

Willkommen in den Affinity-Foren!

Können Sie bitte näher auf Ihr spezifisches Problem eingehen? Da in diesem Thread mehrere Punkte angesprochen wurden und die Antworten je nach den von Ihnen verwendeten spezifischen PDF-Dateien usw. unterschiedlich ausfallen.

Beziehen Sie sich darauf, dass der Ressourcenmanager das PDF mit 72 DPI meldet?

Oder bezieht sich dies auf die Darstellung des platzierten PDFs in Ihrer Affinity-Datei?

[strt]

Also mein Problem ist, dass ich PDFs mit Musiknoten platzieren möchte.

Option 1: Transfer -> Qualität ist in der Ansicht, wie auch im Export schlecht (72 dpi)

Option 2: Interpretieren -> Schriften fehlen (diverse Notenzeichen etc.) 

 

Mein Wunsch: PDF Datei platzieren und in hoher Qualität (300 dpi) ausgeben. (So ist es z.B. zumindest in InDesign möglich)