FRRN Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 Hi community, I am trying to export a dotted line from Publisher to a pdf document and no matter the resolution output of the pdf, the result is an amorphic shape that lost the roundness. Please see the pictures attached. Any idea how to fix this? Thanks in advance for your help! Dotted line RESULT.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 23 minutes ago, BofG said: A pdf uses Bezier curves, which means a technically perfect circle isn't possible. That's (technically) true. But the on-screen representation in the pdf could/should be better. At least it is using different applications... 2.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 27 minutes ago, BofG said: That's actually quite interesting... viewing these on my phone through the Google Drive viewer both sets of dots look just as round. I wonder if the different viewers handle "circles" differently. Perhaps swapping out the Bezier representation for a true round shape. Anyway, I'd use squares. Problem solved The default viewing condition in Acrobat/Reader is to "Enhance thin lines," which is a terrible default setting as the OP's pdf looks like this: If that setting is turned off (which gets reset upon an update), then the OP's pdf looks fine on-screen. However, whether this setting is on or off makes no difference in each of the 3 applications I used to compare with Affinity applications. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 Perhaps you are reading the relevant portions (as well as drawing the proper conclusion), perhaps not... The point I would like to reiterate is why does every other application display its pdfs "properly" (lack of screen artifacts in this case) in Acrobat/Reader and Affinity applications do not if the pdf generating application plays no part in the process? Google's, Chrome's and FF's pdf readers are garbage (so is Preview) when it comes to many pdf constructs that display properly in Acrobat/Reader. They also don't have Acrobat's or Reader's dubious default preference for enhancing thin lines (which I always turn off). I have no idea what the "real" issue is with the pdf. Nor what viewer is being used. I do know the OP is using the Windows version, and so if Acrobat/Reader is being used to view the pdf AND if the issue is this issue of dotted lines appearing pixelated, turning off that preference may/will provide a solution that is acceptable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 46 minutes ago, BofG said: I must have misunderstood, when you said you compared other applications I thought you meant viewers, as in most viewers displayed it correctly, but it seems you meant creating pdfs with dots from those other applications show no issues regardless of viewer? I'm going to take a look on my computer and see as I'm intrigued as to what is happening.. Yes as regards other generating applications such as CorelDraw, QuarkXPress, AI, ID, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 15 minutes ago, BofG said: So this has me mostly stumped. The only real difference between the original pdf and pdf2 is the size of the stroke "on" length (i.e. the bit that is drawn, not the gap). The first pdf has a stroke "on" length of 0.0001, the pdf 2 has a stroke "on" length of 0.001. Perhaps the fact that it's 10x smaller in user space is causing the lower output quality. There's not much else going on in there to make a difference. Here's the relevant code from the original posted file: 7.28 w [0.0001 14.4253 ]0 d This is a snippit from the pdf2 file: 1 J 0 j 8 w 10 M [.001 16.017 ].001 d Both have around a 8pt stroke, with a round line cap and essentially zero length "on" sections, with "off" sections at 2x stroke width. I *think* the difference you are pointing out is the phase difference. As nothing else I use has that exact (or relevant) corresponding setting, I cannot test. I'm probably wrong. And yes, the point sizes are a little different but it makes no difference if say I adjust either to use the 7.3 or 8 points the other has. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FRRN Posted September 22, 2019 Author Share Posted September 22, 2019 Wow guys, it seems my problem turned into a deep investigation. Thanks!Conclusion for now: no possibility to fix it through any of the Affinity options and just turn off "Enhance thin lines" in Acrobat. That seems to work for me, I´m just not sure if the receiver of my PDF will have this option activated by default, which probably it is, so he won't be able to see the correct output. Mmmm, maybe I will eventually change it to squares as @BofG suggested... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 1 hour ago, BofG said: ...I've not been able to see 100% on the original file as that one has all the streams compressed and it's a pain to deflate them. I've not found a setting from AD to create an uncompressed document to play with... This work? Uncompressed-File.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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