I cannot see the background color and borders when exporting

Question

I created a 10 page document with a background color and borders around the images (I am usiong InDesign 5.5), when I export it to PDF I only see white pages with my images, what am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

I suspected as much. [Paper] is the absence of ink -- it means don't put anything here and let the paper stock show through and in the PDF it is essentially transparent ( the PDF only shows a white background to keep you from seeing the insides of the monitor -- well not really, but Acrobat doesn't dispaly transparency with grid the way Photshop does). The ability to edit the swatch is a convenience to make it easier for you to visualize what your design will look like on colored stock.
If you want a colored background you either need to print on colored stock, or you need to print the color in the background by creating a frame and filling it with the color of your choice. I doubt you will be printing on a dark brown, especially since there are areas of white in your design, and the only way you get white is by leaving the paper blank iin those areas, or using an opaque white ink, which is bothexpensive and not very practical in photos, especially over a dark color.