Lorox Posted March 17 Posted March 17 Just yesterday I notice that while some paths with a dotted stroke looked perfectly (or as intended) in my Publisher docoment/file they didn't transport correctly to PDF at all making the option of a "balanced dash“ as offered in the stroke panel effectively useless… – please see the attached screenshot. What's going on here? Obviously it doesn't really help workflow-wise if for a workaround you'll have to revert to two separate strokes again which have to be carefully aligned at the corner... It will look OK, but that's not what we expected when we got the ”Balanced Dash" option, I guess. Quote
Pšenda Posted March 17 Posted March 17 If I remember correctly, PDF cannot balance dotted lines, so the dots have to be baked/rasterized. Don't you have the rasterization option turned off for unsupported features when exporting? https://www.google.com/search?q=Balanced+dash+pdf+site:https://forum.affinity.serif.com Quote Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.5.7.2948 (Retail) Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605. Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605. Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.
GarryP Posted March 17 Posted March 17 It seems to be working okay for me in Publisher 2.6.0 on Windows, see attached image with the PDF on the left (outlined in red) and the document on the right. If the document and export settings can be supplied then someone can investigate it. Quote
Lorox Posted March 17 Author Posted March 17 Thanks to y'all – @Pšenda for pointing out via Google all those other posts concerning the issue and @GarryP for pointing to v 2.6 (Presently I'm still on v 2.5.6 and I'll certainly check again after updating my apps to v 2.6 – I hadn't found the time yet…). I'll attache a screenshot of my Export settings, nevertheless. Quote
Pšenda Posted March 17 Posted March 17 3 minutes ago, Lorox said: I'll attache a screenshot of my Export settings The dots look balanced in the export preview - is there a problem with the browser (this has also been discussed here many times)? Try uploading the exported PDF file for verification by other users. Quote Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.5.7.2948 (Retail) Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605. Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605. Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.
Lorox Posted March 17 Author Posted March 17 I just found that post by @Hangman (posted March 14, 2024 in https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/200826-pdf-export-of-dotted-line-different/ ) saying: "Balanced strokes up to and including 2.5 pt are being exported as unbalanced strokes". "Balanced strokes above 2.5 pt are being exported as expanded strokes". My stroke is 2 pt whereas GarryP's stroke is 5,9 pt – which might explain that his PDF is OK because of just that and mine isn't (and that the version of AD or AP might not be crucial after all). GarryP 1 Quote
Lorox Posted March 17 Author Posted March 17 4 minutes ago, Pšenda said: The dots look balanced in the export preview - is there a problem with the browser (this has also been discussed here many times)? Try uploading the exported PDF file for verification by other users. Yeah, actually the preview does look OK but the output PDF is definitely lacking the "Balanced Dash" setting – it's positively gone when you open the PDF again with Designer and take a look at the stroke panel… I'll attach the PDF here. corner_dotted-line_balanced-dash_designer-vs-pdf_2.pdf Quote
Hangman Posted March 17 Posted March 17 Hi @Lorox, This is indeed the same bug, logged under AF-2396 which is still waiting to be fixed... As soon as you change your stroke width to 2.6 pt or above the stroke is exported correctly, i.e., Balanced... There is a workaround for maintaining the balanced stroke when the stroke width is 2.5 pt or below though the workaround has its own bug so technically it's not a viable workaround... The workaround is to select the balanced strokes, change them to a solid line, and add an additional node to the pressure curve, e.g., in the centre of the graph, change the line back to a dotted line and export... While this maintains the balanced stroke on export you'll not the dotted line is made up of jagged rather than round dots... Expanding the dashed strokes minus the additional node will work but even that has issues, as you'll see, one of the dots at the end of the open curve isn't fully formed... Quote Affinity Designer 2.6.3 | Affinity Photo 2.6.3 | Affinity Publisher 2.6.3 MacBook Pro M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Magic Mouse HP ENVY x360, 8 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Windows 10 Home, Logitech Mouse
Lorox Posted March 17 Author Posted March 17 4 hours ago, Hangman said: Expanding the dashed strokes minus the additional node will work but even that has issues, as you'll see, one of the dots at the end of the open curve isn't fully formed... I actually noticed that effect when I first experimented with exporting those supposedly balanced dashed lines to PDF. With open paths the first and last dots seemed to be more or less mangled. Sometimes dots on sharp corners also looked a bit "funky"... Hangman 1 Quote
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