Exported PDF soft masks are present but never used

[Barney Stratford]

I'm running Designer 2.5.7 on macOS 15.2 with Metal turned on. I have attached a Designer file with a soft mask. When exporting the file as a PDF, the soft mask is omitted and the underlying objects appear unmasked. The shading dictionary and the transparency XObject that are required to implement the soft mask effect are both present in the exported PDF, but are never used. I was able to manually fix up the PDF to use the shading by adding a /SMask entry to a graphics state object and adjusting the shading object. This is attached.

As exported by AD.pdf Manually corrected.pdf Original AD file.afdesign

[NathanC]

Hi @Barney Stratford,

To confirm, in your 'As exported by AD' example I'm assuming you had the 'Rasterise' setting set to 'None' as opposed to 'Unsupported Properties'? As far as I can tell the gradient soft mask curve is treated as an unsupported property by the exporter, and as such would be removed from the shape in the final PDF in your example, as when I'm exporting the layer is flattened to pixels when left on the PDF (For export) preset.

[Barney Stratford]

Yes, I've got "rasterise" set to "None". The thing is, it looks like it's trying to export the soft mask, as there are unused soft-mask-related objects (eg object 16) in the PDF file. It's so close to being able to show the correct effect without having to rasterise it.

Edited January 23 by Barney Stratford
Avoid repeating myself.

[Barney Stratford]

Just to be clear, the bug is that there are unused objects in the exported PDF file. These should either not be exported at all, as they bloat the file, or they should preferably be used to create the effect that they're intended for. You need to open the PDF in a text editor to see what I'm talking about.