How to prevent preflight warnings from embedded PDF

[Dan Sumption]

I have received a PDF from a magazine contributor, for insertion in the magazine I'm designing.

However, when I place the PDF I get a warning that the version is incompatible with the PDF export version.

There is a button to "fix" this issue. However, after pressing it, the PDF warning disappears and a number of new errors appear about missing fonts. Those in turn have "Fix" buttons, which open the font manager, but the "missing" fonts aren't listed in Font Manager.

The PDF appears fine when printed out, so I'm not sure why Publisher thinks there is an issue. What is the best way of fixing these problems, as it's really annoying (and a potential source of errors) having a popup telling me that there are Preflight warnings every time I go to export.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Dan Sumption

[walt.farrell]

50 minutes ago, Dan Sumption said:

However, when I place the PDF I get a warning that the version is incompatible with the PDF export version.

That Preflight check uses a pre-specified PDF export version, which might not match the version you're going to choose when you perform the Export operation. Thus, you might want to create a new Preflight profile, or edit the existing one you're using, and change the PDF export version so it matches the version you're going to use.

[NathanC]

Hi @Dan Sumption welcome to the forums,

The default Preflight profile warning for placed PDF files set to passthrough is working off the assumption you're exporting your document to the PDF/X-1a:2003 PDF version and will warn you if your placed PDF file is incompatible with this version, if you're not exporting to PDF/X-1a this error can be ignored, or alternatively you can change your Preflight compatibility version or disable the warning altogether.

This can all be done in the Preflight edit profile menu, accessed via the three line/burger menu to the right hand side of 'Profile'. You can then edit the behaviour of the PDF passthrough notification or turn it off altogether in Preflight, this will then create you a <Custom> Preflight profile which can then be turned into a permanent one via the 'Create profile' button found in the same burger menu.

More info on Preflight profiles: https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/pages/Publishing/preflight.html

https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/pages/Panels/preflightPanel.html

[Dan Sumption]

Brilliant, thanks @NathanC!

[Dan Sumption]

Sorry, one more question... the printer I use does require PDFs to be in PDF/X-1a:2001 format - I'm a bit worried about what this means for this particular file. Presumably I can't ignore either error?

[NathanC]

9 minutes ago, Dan Sumption said:

Sorry, one more question... the printer I use does require PDFs to be in PDF/X-1a:2001 format - I'm a bit worried about what this means for this particular file. Presumably I can't ignore either error?

If you're exporting to a format which requires this PDF version but have placed an incompatible PDF, using 'Fix' should just change the policy of your placed document from Passthrough to Interpret, while Passthrough is an exact reproduction of your original PDF, Interpret is the app interpreting the placed PDF's contents, which may result in some elements not appearing as they were originally intended, such as a bitmap preview but also may have no real change at all. From what I'm aware placing any PDF file which isn't also a PDF/X-1a file will result in this error due to the version mismatch, so your original PDF prior to placing it would also need to be PDF/X-1a to maintain the Passthrough, or an Interpret is forced.