Unwanted rasterize in exported PDF

[Lojza]

When exporting to PDF, some content gets rasterized (which is not desired).

 

Please, see the attached afdesign file - when exporting to PDF, the result is 25 x 25 px raster.

 

Also, in this file, selection cannot be exported at all. If you select some of the curves (fishes) and export as "Selection without background", the resulting PDF seems to contain no curves, neither raster.

 

Another bug seems to be here with the "Erase" rectangle - if this rectangle is selected along with other curves (fishes), it gets exported ("Selection without background") as standard, visible rectangle (without the "Erase" style).

 

I'm not sure I can identify the real "culprit" - whether is it the "container" rectangle, or the "Erase" rectangle, but the fact is that without further editing, flattening and applying boolean operations, this icon is not exportable properly to PDF.

reasterized_export.afdesign

[TonyB]

The PDF format doesn't support complex blend modes like erase, so it has to rasterise the contents.

[Lojza]

The PDF format doesn't support complex blend modes like erase, so it has to rasterise the contents.

 

OK, I understand there are PDF limitations, that's probably something we have to live with...

 

But would it be possible to do some (optional) kind of  "vector flattening" on the background before export? I mean, perform expand stroke, layer merging, boolean subtract with "erase" mode and then export plain curves..?