unsharp pixelised text after pdf export

[Antje Müller]

Some Text is pixelised after pdf-export, idependent from the text frame, font size or any adjustments. i tried various pdf export settings. Suddenly a text that was sharp before became also pixelised. I checked with different pdf-viewer.

V2 on Mac 10:15

Thanks for help!

AufkleberWebadresse-60x30-Feb23-5.pdf AufkleberWebadresse-60x30-Feb23-6.pdf AufkleberWebadresse-60x30-Feb23-7.pdf AufkleberWebadresse-60x30-Feb23.afpub

[NotMyFault]

on Mac, the font "Open Sans" in bold / semibold is not available. After replacing by "Helvetica" all text exports as vector and not rasterized.

So maybe a font issue.

Please bear in mind that the document resolution (in pixel) is quite small. If the document gets rasterised e.g. on Display or printer using that resolution, the fonts will all look rasterised. If you preview the file zoomed in by 1000% on a high DPI display, the font looks much sharper (higher resolution) as it will be in reality.

[loukash]

11 hours ago, Antje Müller said:

Some Text is pixelised after pdf-export, idependent from the text frame, font size or any adjustments.

If a vector object is affected by a layer effect that is above in the vertical layer stack order, it will be rasterized on export.
You have three separate text frames, each with a drop shadow layer effect. As soon as only 1 barely visible effect pixel covers the text frame below, the latter will be rasterized.

It's a real p.i.t.a. to deal with these layer effect things. In the meantime, I'm avoiding them completely.  

A simple workaround:

Make sure to keep all text in one text frame. Then use paragraph attributes and spacing to distribute them where you want them. Then you can apply the drop shadow to the whole text frame, and only the background image will be affected. No text will be rasterized.

There are also other, more complex workarounds that may involve duplicate objects, symbols, linked layers and similar gimmicks.

[Antje Müller]

19 hours ago, loukash said:

If a vector object is affected by a layer effect that is above in the vertical layer stack order, it will be rasterized on export.
You have three separate text frames, each with a drop shadow layer effect. As soon as only 1 barely visible effect pixel covers the text frame below, the latter will be rasterized.

It's a real p.i.t.a. to deal with these layer effect things. In the meantime, I'm avoiding them completely.  

A simple workaround:

Make sure to keep all text in one text frame. Then use paragraph attributes and spacing to distribute them where you want them. Then you can apply the drop shadow to the whole text frame, and only the background image will be affected. No text will be rasterized.

There are also other, more complex workarounds that may involve duplicate objects, symbols, linked layers and similar gimmicks.

That's it! Thanks for the clear explanation & solution :-) (Indesign had no problem with this layout, but I guess it's now avoidable when I use Af. I'm happy for any InDesign usage less... ;-))

[loukash]

2 hours ago, Antje Müller said:

Indesign had no problem with this layout

InDesign (or Illustrator) would also rasterize such objects on export, but differently.
Here an older post where I was analyzing some of these problems: