Revisiting PDF and Transparent Backgrounds

[Brad Brighton]

EDIT: This is all on macOS

I've seen several threads on the topic of exporting PDFs containing transparent backgrounds during my research trying to resolve this on my own and all of them suggest that I should be able to do what I'm trying to do and yet, I fail. Can anyone spot the error of my ways here?

Given: The attached .afdesign file

Purpose: Apple Mail email signature image

Challenge: I want the background to be transparent, rounded corners and all -- equivalent to a PNG export -- not the white background that shows up in Finder Preview, QuickLook, when dropped into email directly or as a predefined signature, or as when reopened by Affinity Designer (both production and latest 1.7.2 beta)

I do NOT need: "use a PNG" as a suggested workaround unless you can show me how to have the signature image not be impacted by the Apple Mail message image size setting and still have that image size setting apply to all the "normal" attachments. The signature degradation that occurs in each of the different ways I've approached it under "small" images (which will be common in this use case) is unacceptable.

I've tried "PDF for web", "PDF for export", "PDF/X-4", "PDF for Print", and "PDF (flatten)".

What am I missing?

Thank you!

sample_for_support.afdesign

Sample Sig.pdf

Edited August 7, 2019 by Brad Brighton
Clarified the platform

[Hilltop]

I don't have the answer as it pertains to Designer but, as a possible workaround, have you tried to print to PDF and use a PDF printer driver that's installed on your computer? 

[Brad Brighton]

1 hour ago, Hilltop said:

I don't have the answer as it pertains to Designer but, as a possible workaround, have you tried to print to PDF and use a PDF printer driver that's installed on your computer? 

Good thought, thank you -- but when I open in Preview, the background isn't transparent either. Preview preferences under Mojave seem not to have any settings for turning on/off display of background "Show document background" makes no visible change in presentation; it does have a "background color" and it's black and does not show though the result.

[MikeW]

15 minutes ago, Brad Brighton said:

Good thought, thank you -- but when I open in Preview, the background isn't transparent either. Preview preferences under Mojave seem not to have any settings for turning on/off display of background; it does have a "background color" and it's black and does not show though the result.

Other than the white area inside the rounded rectangle, the background is transparent in the pdf like in AD.

[Brad Brighton]

22 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Other than the white area inside the rounded rectangle, the background is transparent in the pdf like in AD.

I'm not sure I follow -- which is probably why I'm posting this in the first place. :-D 

Every version I look at has the white showing up outside the rounded rect. I've used it inside the signature box and as an attachment both (and compared to the PNG equivalent) and don't see the effect I'm looking for (that is, the PDF presentation equivalent to the PNG presentation when it comes to 'background' outside the rounded rect).

Could you elaborate further please?

[MikeW]

This is a screen shot from Acrobat, Adobe Reader would be the same and likely some other pdf readers capable of using a transparency grid.

That Preview or Mail are evidently incapable of displaying the transparency in a pdf is something for Apple to address.

[Brad Brighton]

40 minutes ago, MikeW said:

This is a screen shot from Acrobat, Adobe Reader would be the same and likely some other pdf readers capable of using a transparency grid.

That Preview or Mail are evidently incapable of displaying the transparency in a pdf is something for Apple to address.

Are you sure you didn't open the PNG I attached for reference? I opened the PDF using Adobe Reader and it still shows the undesired white background.

[MikeW]

It's not my first rodeo.

You have to go to Reader's preferences to turn on the transparency grid.

[Brad Brighton]

8 minutes ago, MikeW said:

It's not my first rodeo.

You have to go to Reader's preferences to turn on the transparency grid.

My apologies for missing that. Fighting with PDFs in this way isn't among my common activities.

I'm still looking for someone on the Mac side to hopefully chime in with some insight as well.

[Wosven]

For information, perhaps Mail is able to show a PDF in an email as signature, but I don't think it's common and only people using this app will see it. The other ones (other apps, webmails, smartphones, etc.) will have a PDF as attachement, and I don't think that's what you're expecting, and not a good signature if people need to open it in a PDF reader.

It's the same as using uncommon fonts that's only installed on some computer: the other computers wil replace them by default fonts, and the result can be uggly or unexpected.

[Brad Brighton]

3 hours ago, Wosven said:

For information, perhaps Mail is able to show a PDF in an email as signature, but I don't think it's common and only people using this app will see it. The other ones (other apps, webmails, smartphones, etc.) will have a PDF as attachement, and I don't think that's what you're expecting, and not a good signature if people need to open it in a PDF reader.

It's the same as using uncommon fonts that's only installed on some computer: the other computers wil replace them by default fonts, and the result can be uggly or unexpected.

That's a good point about PDF preview (with or without transparency) being mail client dependent. Thank you.

I may have to go to HTML then... at least the expectation of basic HTML support is broad enough to believe recipients will have it.

[Wosven]

12 minutes ago, Brad Brighton said:

I may have to go to HTML then...

That's a good idea, and HTML permit people using text only emails for security reasons, to read the signatures.

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, Wosven said:

That's a good idea, and HTML permit people using text only emails for security reasons, to read the signatures.

Doesn't that require an 'alternate' tag or some such with a text-only version of the sig?

[Wosven]

Usually email apps can send the 2 versions, but it's able too to only display text from HTML without formatting.  At least Thunderbird can, and Mail too long ago if my memory doesn't fail.

[Thomahawk]

If you intend to use this PDF placed in an Email to be displayed as a footer or the like, I would also not recommend this. Formatting emails is one of the most difficult tasks. Creating a website is really easy in comparison. That is because of the variety of different mail clients around and barely any of them really adheres to enough standards. There are always things that work in one but not in others, unless you stick to the most basic stuff.