Gatada Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 This is driving me nuts. I am sure I managed to do this before, now I cannot figure out how to export a PDF with transparent background. - Document Setup has "Transparent background" enabled. - I am seeing the document with the classic checked background. - During export I set "Compatibility" to PDF 1.7 (supposedly only 1.4+ support transparent backgrounds). The files I export have a white background. What am I doing wrong? All help appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 A pdf has a "white page color" but that doesn't mean that there is a solid white object there. Gatada 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartRc Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 Hi Gatada, There could be several reasons why transparency in the image is not showing. You are quite correct to indicate that PDF 1.4 up does supports transparency. i have tried it with some of my files and the export is working correctly However, Have you checked the settings (Preferences in Acrobat Reader or Acrobat Pro)? CONTROL+K for preferences then activate Transparency Grid Checkbox. This will help you see what is transparent in your file. If you are exporting from Affinity Designer to PDF You can re-import the PDF into Affinity Photo and turn on Background Transparency (Document/Transparent Background) To again display what parts of the image are transparent. Layer effects can effectively 'destroy' parts of an image when converted to PDF if unsupported they are get rasterised by default (toggling this can have weird results!) Hope this helps..if not I am sure their will be more contributions soon... :) Gatada and Ranpo 1 1 Quote Affinity Version 1 (10.6) Affinity Version 2.4.2 All (Designer | Photo | Publisher) Beta; 2.5 2.2402 OS:Windows 10 Pro 22H2 OS Build 19045.4046+ Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19053.1000.0 Rig:AMD FX 8350 and AMD Radeon (R9 380 Series) Settings Version 21.04.01 Radeon Settings Version 2020 20.1.03) + Wacom Intuous 4M with driver 6.3.41-1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gatada Posted April 20, 2017 Author Share Posted April 20, 2017 Dammit. I think the PDFs had transparent backgrounds, just all my viewers decided to be kind and render a white background. Even Preview did this, toggling View > Show Document Background did nothing. The exported PDF worked in Xcode however, which is the only thing I need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartRc Posted April 21, 2017 Share Posted April 21, 2017 Excellent News ..PDF can be a bit strange sometimes! :) Quote Affinity Version 1 (10.6) Affinity Version 2.4.2 All (Designer | Photo | Publisher) Beta; 2.5 2.2402 OS:Windows 10 Pro 22H2 OS Build 19045.4046+ Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19053.1000.0 Rig:AMD FX 8350 and AMD Radeon (R9 380 Series) Settings Version 21.04.01 Radeon Settings Version 2020 20.1.03) + Wacom Intuous 4M with driver 6.3.41-1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
p10n Posted October 16, 2018 Share Posted October 16, 2018 Old thread, but I feel its the same issue. There seem to be PDFs where viewers do not agree whether they are transparent or not. I exported a document with transparent background from Affinity Designer to PDF, (1.7), and all looked well some time ago. Now I exported again (after a few changes in the document), and the resulting PDF shows as follows: OSX Preview shows white background (despite setting is "show the background" (grid)) Importing it in PowerPoint -> appears transparent Opening the PDF with Affinity Designer: white background (can switch it to transparent again) Another PDF (same artboard from the same document, other PDF settings) shows white background in all 3 situations, despite the export some time ago has been transparent. Any ideas? ToolLayout-plain_sometimesTransparent.pdf ToolLayout-plain-CMYK-neverTransparent.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njyo Posted March 8, 2023 Share Posted March 8, 2023 On 10/17/2018 at 1:29 AM, p10n said: Old thread, but I feel its the same issue. There seem to be PDFs where viewers do not agree whether they are transparent or not. I exported a document with transparent background from Affinity Designer to PDF, (1.7), and all looked well some time ago. Now I exported again (after a few changes in the document), and the resulting PDF shows as follows: OSX Preview shows white background (despite setting is "show the background" (grid)) Importing it in PowerPoint -> appears transparent Opening the PDF with Affinity Designer: white background (can switch it to transparent again) Another PDF (same artboard from the same document, other PDF settings) shows white background in all 3 situations, despite the export some time ago has been transparent. Any ideas? ToolLayout-plain_sometimesTransparent.pdf ToolLayout-plain-CMYK-neverTransparent.pdf I have EXACTLY the same problem. I know it has worked in the past, but now I don't seem to be able to export PDFs with transparent background again with Affinity Designer 2.0.0. Thanks, Wolf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted March 8, 2023 Share Posted March 8, 2023 6 hours ago, njyo said: I have EXACTLY the same problem. I know it has worked in the past, but now I don't seem to be able to export PDFs with transparent background again with Affinity Designer 2.0.0. You just set up your document with Transparent Background specified when you create it, or via Document Setup (Color tab) after it's created. After that, it's a question of whether the PDF viewer you're using supports transparency, and if so whether it's an option you need to enable. For example, I'll attach a PDF with transparency that I created in Designer 2. If I open it in Acrobat Viewer the page background is white, not transparent. But that's because, by default, Acrobat Reder doesn't show transparency. In Acrobat Reader, you can try Edit > Preferences, then Page Display, then Show Transparency Grid: pdf-with-transparency.pdf Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arkinien Posted December 14, 2023 Share Posted December 14, 2023 On 3/8/2023 at 7:32 AM, walt.farrell said: I'll attach a PDF with transparency that I created in Designer 2. Sorry to say, but it's NOT transparent, at least, not universally. The issue is that the transparent background have to be compatible with Industry standard applications, such as Adobe Indesign. For example, a logo project MUST be usable by others professionals not using Affinity. Exporting artboards to EPS works just fine, but confuses most clients who cannot preview those files and often end up deleting them. In that regard, PDF files are better. Now just to be clear, PDF does support transparent background while created with other application, sot it's a not a format limitation. As previously mentioned in this post, this worked in the past, but that seems to be gone now... and that is quite infuriating! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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