Avoiding PDF export rasterisation challenge

[Paul Mc]

Hi everyone, I've been given a job which is to approximate a text effect created by my client using Picsart. The sample is a low resolution bitmap and unsuitable for print. Sorry, but I no longer have a copy to show here. Essentially it's a hard-edged drop shadow with a gap. Like this:

I've created this one by duplicating the blue text layer twice and then increasing the stroke width on the two new layers with a 10% increase in the baseline and change of colour on the lower one. The middle layer is then set to Erase mode.

There are two requirements: I need to export in vector and I need the text to be editable (I've a lot of these to do).

A straight PDF export of this design causes rasterisation. I presume this is because of the erase mode layer in the middle.

First I tried the contour tool and then later  by creating compounds to achieve a similar result. Text seems not to obey the rules with these methods (stroke thickness is ignored, groups go funky etc.).

Converting to curves gets me close but there is a lot of tidying up to do because the Expand Stroke function creates lots of glitches and the result can be quite different to the clean look of the erase layer. Plus this a tedious and time consuming workflow for each string of text.

Although I'm doing all the experimentation in Designer I'm hoping to move this to Publisher and then merge with a data source to create all the artwork.

Any suggestions on how to achieve a result like this would be very welcome. Thanks.

[Ldina]

@Paul Mc It's my understanding that Erase Mode is not supported by the PDF standard, so my guess is that layer will be rasterized or ignored during PDF creation.. I haven't played around to find a solution due to time constraints, but wanted to pass this along.

[Ldina]

@Paul Mc I'm not sure if this is what you are after, but my export to PDF (Press Ready) remained vector. 

I created Artistic Text, added fill and stroke color/width.

Converted to Curves, which put the individual letters into a Group.

Added a Warp Group (Arc Horizontal - 60%) to the Group.

Duplicated the above Warp Group and changed the fill and stroke color of the lower text group and repositioned it.

 

Curved Text Hard Shadow.afdesign Curved Text Hard Shadow.pdf

[HCl]

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[Ldina]

2 minutes ago, Return said:

I Think you're missing one step and that is to make the outline transparent.

Thanks, you're right. That's what happens when I skim read things due to rushing, and partly out of pure laziness!! My mistake. 😵‍💫

[HCl]

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[Paul Mc]

Thanks @Return & @Ldina

I managed to get this far as well. I appreciate you putting in the time here. As I mentioned, the contour tool doesn't work in my scenario as the text needs to be in a group and then positioned which currently has a bug and doesn't work. Sadly, the glitch clean-up required using the spec font makes using fill (convert to curves) and outline (expand stroke) uneconomic (for me). Also, as I've a few of these to do I really wanted some text objects which I could edit directly and this workflow is pretty destructive and as a result time consuming. It may be that I have no alternative but to do it this way but I've been staring at this for two days now with no good outcome hence the post here to see if I was missing anything. Thanks again.

[HCl]

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[thomaso]

2 hours ago, Paul Mc said:

Also, as I've a few of these to do I really wanted some text objects which I could edit directly and this workflow is pretty destructive and as a result time consuming.

A non-destructive workaround which keeps the text editable: increased font sizes + reduced tracking + geometry subtract.

v1 text effect editable.afpub   v1 text effect editable.pdf

[Ldina]

@thomaso Using Designer v2.5.5, I am able to use a Compound to erase two "shapes" (I used a rectangle,  ellipse on top, and set the ellipse to Subtract), but I couldn't get it to work with Artistic Text or Frame Text. Both text layers just disappear, whether I had the top Compound operator set to Add, Subtract, Intersect or XOR. Adjusting Fill and/or Strokes after applying the Compound didn't work either. When I convert the text to Curves, the Compound works the same as it does on vector shapes.

I suspect the Compound doesn't work for text in v2, since it works fine with shapes. May be a regression or bug, unless I am missing something.

[thomaso]

25 minutes ago, Ldina said:

I couldn't get it to work with Artistic Text or Frame Text. Both text layers just disappear,

Do you mean the layers get lost in the Layers panel, or 'just' in the layout window? – Unlike subtracting shapes/curves, the result when subtracting text (frame or art text) has no fill colour and may appear invisible…

… and I need to apply fill and/or stroke to the compound layer to make the object visible if it is not selected.

[Ldina]

36 minutes ago, thomaso said:

… and I need to apply fill and/or stroke to the compound layer to make the object visible if it is not selected.

Thanks Thomaso, that was my error. It didn't even occur to me to apply color to the compound itself. I was trying to apply color to the individual Artistic Text layers inside the Compound Group. Applying color to the Compound Group itself works fine and as you originally described, in v2.5.5 as well. 👍

[Paul Mc]

Thank you @thomaso

This is so close. Sadly it misses the rounded corner effect create by using a thick stroke or contour around the text for the "shadow" layer. Increasing the font size isn't sufficient unfortunately. Applying a stroke to the compound alone creates some strange effects and applying it to the compounded source text has no effect - strokes appear to be ignored by compounds.

Short of creating custom fonts for the shadow and gap layers I can't see a way to do this using AD. It's looking like I'm going to have to manually create each one.

[thomaso]

17 hours ago, Paul Mc said:

First I tried the contour tool and then later  by creating compounds to achieve a similar result. Text seems not to obey the rules with these methods (stroke thickness is ignored, groups go funky etc.).

Same in V1, where the Contour Tool was logged for some mal-functions.

Were such known Contour Tool issues never fixed in V2, or the Contour Tool improved in any way?

[Paul Mc]

2 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Were such known Contour Tool issues never fixed in V2, or the Contour Tool improved in any way?

I'm not sure. I didn't use contour until V2. In any case I've logged it as a bug and had an acknowledgement that this is a known issue and is on the list to be addressed. My specific issue was that if you used contour on a text object, grouped it and then moved the group that the contour would move in an erratic manner separate from the underlying text it was attached to.

 

[lepr]

8 hours ago, thomaso said:

Were such known Contour Tool issues never fixed in V2

No, the devs were too busy updating the Cat Tool.

[lepr]

Here's a non-destructive solution that has the rounded corners you require and which will export as vectors. When you edit one text object, the other two will update simultaneously. Because of yet another bug, you'll need to toggle the visibility of the edited text object, off then on, to refresh the display with the new state of the text. A Compound object wrapping a lone text object may seem superfluous but it is to work around  a contouring bug.

shadowed.afdesign

 

[Paul Mc]

Hey @lepr thank you very much. This looks like it does the job. How on earth did you figure out that the single object compound would get around the contouring bug?

I won't get chance to test this on the real artwork until tomorrow. I will feedback on here with the result.

Thank you again.

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, lepr said:

Here's a non-destructive solution that has the rounded corners you require and which will export as vectors.

Would you mind to upload a screenshot so I can try to reproduce your solution in V1?

3 hours ago, lepr said:

No, the devs were too busy updating the Cat Tool.

I didn't know there was a new one. The cat's help seems to unveil that Serif still left room in the Cat Tool for development in future app versions… until it will be generative like other shapes and able to wave its paw or tail…

Quote

Customisation

The Affinity Cat shape tool can't be customised, (…)

https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Tools/tools_cat.html&title=Cat Tool

[Ldina]

5 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Would you mind to upload a screenshot so I can try to reproduce your solution in V1?

In case @lepr is zzzzz...

Is this what you needed?

[Paul Mc]

@lepr a quick update - this works fine in my pub file. Thank you so much for sharing the method and the file.