How do I make black text export K100 black in PDFX (ie not CMYK)?

[Steve Grodz]

Hi All, 

I am exporting a document from Affinity Publisher and need the text to be K100 black in the PDF (using PDFX-3). 

Does anyone know how I can do that? 

At present my text is exporting using CYMK (see picture), but giving readings for C, Y and M, not just K. 

Any help appreciated!

[lacerto]

Make sure that you have defined your text as K100 (C, M and Y each 0). If you have the text as RGB 0, 0, 0 or Gray 0, it will be converted to four-color black when exporting to CMYK (e.g. PDF/X-3).

EDIT: Another point, that I was not sure if it still applies [it does]. If you have an RGB document and you export to PDF/X-3, Affinity apps force use of U.S. Web Coated V2 as the output intent profile. If you have set up a different (underlying) workspace CMYK profile (e.g. ISO Coated v2 or something like that), there will be internal "conflict", which results in all CMYK definitions (like K100) being recalculated, resulting in four-color blacks.

To avoid that, it is best to have the document in CMYK color mode, in the first place (and make sure that you export using document color profile). 

[Steve Grodz]

Thanks very much Lacerto, yes that is indeed what I've been doing the last few hours, going back over my text (I have 264 pages!) and changing the colour to C0 M0 Y0 K100. Do you know if there is a quick way to reformat all the text in a doc, without having to individually highlight the text in each text frame? (I have different kinds of text, like headings and things, that I dont want to reformat - so I kind of need to pick out parts of the text in each page). It may be there's no quick way. Lesson learnt if so!   

[lacerto]

1 hour ago, Steve Grodz said:

Do you know if there is a quick way to reformat all the text in a doc, without having to individually highlight the text in each text frame?

If you have text in styles, you could make the change there. Sometimes, though, change in style does not necessarily result in the changed attribute to be applied on existing objects. So I would myself probably do so that I'd select any text that currently has something else than K100 but which should have K100 applied, and then would choose Select > Same > Fill Color (and subsequently also Stroke Color, should you at some point have text that has black stroke, too). That selects all objects that currently have that fill color applied so that you can change it in one go to K100. However, you might well have other than text objects that have that same rich black applied, which you would not want to change to K100, and if so, you might instead want to select ALL text objects in the document using Select > Object > Frame Text (and subsequently other kinds of text objects), and then apply K100 Fill color to the selection.

I think that you cannot use the "Select" feature to specifically select only text that has a specific non-K100 black fill., but if you have a complex document (e.g. with multicolor text), you could use the Find > Replace feature to search formatting with specific four-color black fill color, and then apply K100 fill color formatting to found instances.

[Steve Grodz]

Oh yes thank you I should have thought of doing a find - replace, I will certainly try that next time. As it happens this time I just went through and replaced them all manually, took about eight hours lol. Ah well at least it's done. Thanks again for your helpful suggestions, I appreciate you taking the time and effort to respond!

[Steve Grodz]

Hi Lacerto, 

I converted the text to K100 in Affinity Publisher, and when I hover over it in AP it shows K100. But when I export to ISO Coated v2 300% (ECI) for some reason it seems like to converts/adds back some CMY? There is more CMY when the black text is on top of a shaded colour area like the orange/salmon colour below, as opposed to the lighter background (in which case the CMYK tends to be something like C 1% M 2% Y 4% K 100%. Is perhaps the background colour somehow bleeding into the black text? 

Many thanks for any guidance you can provide!

 

[lacerto]

As you have "Output intent" shown in Adobe Acrobat Pro, I assume that you have exported using one of the PDF/X-based presets. When doing so and when you have placed PDF content in your document, you should be aware of Affinity PDF compatibility rules, which results in rasterization of content whenever the placed PDF is produced using a non-PDF/X-based preset, or if its PDF version number is lower than that of the exported PDF. This involves conversion of K100 black to "rich black" containing all four inks.

Also, when exporting, you should always use the document color profile, and not change it at export time. E.g., I can see that you have exported to ISO Coated v2 300% profile, and in this case your document CMYK color profile should match that. If it does not, all existing CMYK definitions will be converted to the export time profile, which, again, results in K100 definitions becoming four-color black. Unlike in InDesign, Affinity apps cannot "keep numbers" at export time color profile change, and in addition, they do not have internal [Black] color swatch that retains K100 in all CMYK exports (and is auto-converted to RGB 0, 0, 0 in RGB exports). If you need to do such color profile change, you should use File > Document Setup > Color, and use the "Assign" option when selecting a different profile. Or if the change is big, use the Convert option and then manually change the blacks converted to four-color back to K100.

Note, too, that if you document is in RGB color mode, the underlying CMYK color profile was determined at document creation time base on the working CMYK color profile defined in Preferences (which defaults to U.S. Web Coated v2, which you might naturally have changed to something else), and if you want to change it, you need to first switch to CMYK color mode, then convert or assign a different CMYK profile (and if applicable for production, switch back to RGB color mode). You can use CMYK definitions in RGB documents, but whenever exporting, you need to make sure that you do not specify an explicit CMYK profile that conflicts with the underlying document CMYK profile.

[Steve Grodz]

Thanks so much Lacerto! There is indeed a big learning curve here, really appreciate your help. 

I have managed to get text to remain K100 when I export to PDF

Now though my printer says I need to use the "overprint" option for black text. When I choose overprint in the Export Settings, for some reason the K100 text is converted back to CMYK text. Do you know what might allow me to keep overprint and also keep the K100 text? 

Many thanks for any assistance!

[lacerto]

Hmm, interesting that the common overprint black setting would do that! Try if creating a separate global K100 swatch and then, in the context menu, selecting explicitly "Overprint" attribute for the swatch, and then assigning all objects needing to be overprinting K100 with that swatch, could resolve the problem (remember to have general "Overprint black" setting turned off).

[lacerto]

Looking closer to your example, if you need to have K100 overprinting, the underlying colors naturalyl retain their color values. But are you saying that your K100 will have diminished K value in your exports (in the screenshot the K value is K100, and the C, M and Y appear to be matching the color of the background)?

[Steve Grodz]

Thanks Lacerto, I tried that global K100 black swatch. It gave me the below result. So the overprint is on (good) but looks like my black text is still coming through as CMYK, there is the 100K, but also Cyan 1% and Yellow 5% for example... alas. I think what my printer wants is the text to just be K100 and C 0 Y0 M0.

 

[Steve Grodz]

Just further to the above, if I remove the background colour (kind of light yellow parchment effect) then the text is K100 only (C0 M0 Y0) and overprint. So it seems like the extra colours are part of the background maybe..?

[lacerto]

1 hour ago, Steve Grodz said:

So it seems like the extra colours are part of the background maybe..?

Yes, exactly. If K100 is overprinted, it will not knockout the underlying color. What is crucial the the K part stays as 100%. The overprint setting in context of the Export dialog box will only be applied on K100 objects (not e.g. K99). If you need more selective overprinting, you can create global swatches that have the overprint attribute applied. This way you can decide when a specific color value will overprint, and when it will knock out.

[Steve Grodz]

Hmm so I sent this picture example to my printers, but they say they require black text as 0/0/0/100, similar to the below. Do you think this is this something I might be able to achieve with global swatches? 

 

[lacerto]

20 hours ago, Steve Grodz said:

Now though my printer says I need to use the "overprint" option for black text.

There is some confusion on printer's side. First they ask K100 to be overprinted, and when it is (and Adobe Acrobat shows, as expected, the CMY values from the underlying image), they request mere K100 (which it would be if you turn off overprinting and K100 would knockout the underlying color). When overprinting is on and you move the mouse cursor over the K100 text, you should see slightly varying CMY values belonging to the underlying image, similarly as in your screenshots, showing C1, Y5 in one instance, or more solid background image values like C1, M18, Y18 in the other screenshot (the color of table rows).

[Steve Grodz]

Thank you so much Lacerto, you are a legend! My printer agrees with you, and it was a misunderstanding on their part about what the screenshot was showing. Thank you so much!