Adobe Reader adds lines to my graphics

Question

Hi,
I couldn't find this topic elsewhere, so here goes...
My pdf export from Pages works fine, and I can open it in Preview and print to many different printers with good results.
But when viewing the document in Adobe Reader, there are lines around all the objects that have Picture Frames applied to them. When printing from Reader the lines print as well, ruining the document's printed appearance.
Here's what I see and print from Pages and Preview (zoomed in screen grabs):
!http://homepage.mac.com/podzone/forums/051208preview.jpg!
Here's what I see and print from *Adobe Reader*:
!http://homepage.mac.com/podzone/forums/051208reader.jpg!
I get this with every object within picture frames (pictures, text and vector art) when viewing and printing from the Adobe Reader on Mac and PC. And of course, my PC clients use Adobe Reader or Acrobat, so it shows up everywhere.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Eric

Answer 1

Hi Walt,
Did some testing and discovered that some picture frame effects do not render properly in Adobe Reader, others work fine, your mileage may vary. For example, here are 3 frame effects applied to the same art in Pages, *exported as .pdf*, and *viewed in Preview* (screen grabs, 100% scale):
!http://homepage.mac.com/podzone/forums/PreviewTest4051308.jpg! !http://homepage.mac.com/podzone/forums/PreviewTest6051308.jpg! !http://homepage.mac.com/podzone/forums/PreviewTest8051308.jpg!
...And here are the same *.pdf exports* from Pages as viewed in *Adobe Reader*:
!http://homepage.mac.com/podzone/forums/ReaderTest4051308.jpg! !http://homepage.mac.com/podzone/forums/ReaderTest6051308.jpg! !http://homepage.mac.com/podzone/forums/ReaderTest8051308.jpg!
Notice how 2 out of the 3 are acceptable in Reader (gamma and anti-aliasing issues aside). However, if I save the Pages document as a *Postscript file* (as mentioned elsewhere in the forums), the problem magically disappears in Reader. At first glance this looks like a good alternative. Unfortunately, the *Postscript workflow* option has an apparent *negative effect* on the print resolution of my images. To see the difference, look at this actual size screen grab of a photo in a Pages-exported pdf:
!http://homepage.mac.com/podzone/forums/actual051308.jpg!
Now here's a 400% enlargement of a portion of that image when *exported as a pdf directly from Pages*:
!http://homepage.mac.com/podzone/forums/export051308.jpg!
...And here's the same image at 400% after *using the Postscript export* (opened in Preview):
!http://homepage.mac.com/podzone/forums/ps051308.jpg!
Notice the significant loss of resolution in the Postscript export. I'm not sure why this is occurring, but it's there nonetheless. So at this point I'm not a big fan of the Postscript option, and would rather just find picture frames in Pages that export nicely as .pdf for printing, and render properly in Adobe Reader too. I wonder if others have used the PS export to print, and if they've noticed any change in appearance of photos, etc.?
As a side note, even though I have color profiles for all the photos and vector art used in the Pages document, printing to PDF-X errors out and won't complete. So far documents with lots of images have never successfully exported as PDF-X for me. Have you been successful?
Cheers!