PDF export causes text to be pixelated (continued)

Alright, what is going on with Adobe's accounts?
Apparently Adobe doesn't recognize my username and password for this second account, and when I ask to send a password to my email, I never get the email, so I had to create a third account just to post a thread and update it.
And what the hell is going on with my original thread?
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/988287
I can't find a Reply button anywhere to update my question. I just saw it there a few days ago. What happened to that? I can't find for the life of me another way to update my thread! Why is the thread marked (READ ONLY) when my question hasn't been answered yet?
You people have to be kidding me! This is seriously the most confusing, bewildering process I have ever had to go through just to ask a question and update it.
So that's why I'm creating this new thread. Here is a link to the old one:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/988287
Anyways!
Here is the update that I was trying to post for the past week, in that thread, but couldn't:
UPDATE:
I still have not received an answer to my question:
How do I export a vector drawing with text in Photoshop to a PDF, such that the text isn't pixelated when I view the PDF?

Unfortunately I have to use PDF, because I need the file to be infinitely resolved when I zoom in as much as I want (no pixelation).
But then again, why do it in Photoshop in the first place? You are using the most unsuitable tool I can think of to produce guaranteed vector-based output. The standard answer we use in the Illustrator forum a lot is: If it gets rasterized, then there is some appearance that makes the programm think it can only retain the look by converting to pixels. Contrary to what you think, just drawing it out as vectors doesn't guarantee vector output. There is any number of things that could be going on, so unless you tell us more about your setup and what PDF export options you actually use, this is an pretty unproductive discussion, but some of the common caveats are:
- you may not be allowed to embed the fonts
- you may have formatted the text with custom options
- your vector shapes may overlap in a way, that there is no way to calculate holes and self-intersections on paths within the PDF spec
- any number of issues with things involving transparencies and blending modes, including layer styles, partial opacities, adjustment layers
- nesting of layers/ paths in general
Again, without seeing what exactly you are doing, it's impossible to advise, but as a start check those things.
Mylenium

Similar Messages

PDF export causes text to be pixelated

Greetings.
I am trying to export a vector graphic to PDF. The document contains only vector shapes and some text (not rasterized), set to anti-aliased Crisp.
But no matter what options I choose, the text comes out pixelated.
    I increased the dpi from 96 to 300. That didn't work.
    I went to File - Print. There are two options to export a PDF:
        I can click Print again on the subsequent dialog, then opt to export to PDF. That didn't work.
        Or I can click the "Print Settings" button, from which I can then export to PDF. That didn't work.
    I tried opening the Photoshop file in Gimp then saving that as a PDF. That didn't work.
    I tried every possible option in File - Save As. I selected Photoshop PDF, but after 30 minutes of trial and error, I was unable to locate a combination that gave me the PDF I desired. In all cases, even uncompressed, the text is pixelated.
When I searched the Adobe support site, I couldn't find any results that matched what I needed.
What's going on?? How do I just get a normal PDF out of all of these options??
Mac OS X 10.7.3
Photoshop CS 6 beta
Also, some general questions:
[1] I am confused by the layout of the forums: http://forums.adobe.com/community/photoshop
Usually when I think "forum" I see a bunch of threads, categories, and names of posters. Instead this reads more like an FAQ and I feel like I'm asking a brick wall. I'm following the links exactly to "Photoshop forums," but then when it tells me to ask my question, I do so, but then I just get 2 irrelevant results and I can't ask anyone. Where am I supposed to go to get help? I'm so lost browsing this site. Did you want me to start a "discussion" rather than a "thread"? Because I would think that a "discussion" implies that I know what I'm talking about and am conducting/moderating my own meeting (which I'm not, no sarcastic remarks I'm stressed out and just need a simple answer but I have no idea how I'm supposed to ask my question when it says "Ask a question..." I reach a dead end and the site doesn't give me a Step 2 suggestion).
[2] Also: The site seems to load slowly. It takes several extra seconds for pages to load, and by then, I usually refresh the page, which confuses me because then I end up like 2 pages back.
[3] And: Adobe tells me that "andrejfavia" is taken. Who took my username? Was it me from like 5 years ago, or does someone else have the same name? It's been so long.

andrejfavia2 wrote:
And since no one has replied back to me, I'm guessing that the average user doesn't even know how to do something basic like export a vector PDF from graphics with text,
it seems so.. as you don´t know how to do it.
sorry i can´t help im a photo guy and i think i have never touched PDF in photoshop.
andrejfavia2 wrote:
What are you people doing?? This is such a tortorous user interface!!
yep especially that copy and paste is not working via mouse annoys me. i only get the "insert, image link" stuff on my right mouse button.... and i don´t need that as often as copy & paste.
the quote function is not very good either, compared with other forum software.

Keynote PDF Export - black text appears white on some computers, but not all - why?

This problem seems to have been going on forever, why is there STILL no solution? I'm really keen to mover over to Keynote, cos Powerpoint is very cumbersonme and frustrating in my experience, but I'll only ever use Keynote to export PDFs for presentations, so if it can't even get this basic function right, there's really no point in abandoning Powerpoint - at least I know my docs will come out fine and won't have to be embarrassed when clients come back to me frustrated cos they can't read the text!
Any thoughts?

That would because some of the colors you are using are RGB and are being converted to cmyk.
Make a color swatch in the Color specifier and set the ICC profile in the small rainbow square next to the pull down menu in the color sliders tab.
Then use that color swatch in set styles to ensure you have the same color set on all your objects and text.
You should not be using jpegs if you want to ensure an exact color. jpegs are not suitable for flat areas of color.
Peter

Pages to PDF export and text not showing

I exported a pages document from Pages to PDF and I can not see the text???
Font is Tex Gyre Adventor and it is in the color white with a shadow and a tangerine box backdrop
Thoughts? - Thanks!!

I'm not sure exactly why this happened, but I think I might have some reasons why.
Maybe try changing the color of your text to another color instead of white and see if that works. Or maybe try changing the background from tangerine to something else and see if anything changed once it is converted to a PDF.
Another reason is maybe you did it completely wrong when you converted it. I'll explain how to, incase you completed any steps incorrectly.
1) At the top of your screen, press "File" then "Export". At the top, make sure the "PDF" option is selected and not anything else like "Word" or "ePub" or any of the other options.
2) Select the image quality. Perhaps adjusting this to "Best Quality" rather than just "Good" will help in being able to see the white text. I don't know, just a suggestion.
3) Press "Next" which should be flashing in a light blue color.
4) Save your PDF where you want it and call it what you want.
5) Now press "Export"
6) Open the PDF document and see if anything changed.
Sorry if I haven't been much help but just see if that works.
Another thing I will suggest is to try printing it out and seeing if the text is visible and that might help out.
I'd also suggest, finally, start all over again with converting and follow the steps above, and see if anything changes.
Hope I could help, sorry If I didn't.

Combining 3 PDF's causes text on first page to be blocks

Have uploaded 3 PDF's and am trying to combine them to one PDF. They combine with no errors, but the first page shows blocks instead of text.

I took the original XLS file, uploaded it to acrobat.com and it converted when using the combine method. The other 2 PDF's, were sent to us. I don't know how they were created, but we aren't having trouble with them.
It's a fairly simple XLS file, just one page. Uploading it with Arial, shows blocks. Uploading the same file, but using Times New Roman, text converts fine.
Taking the original XLS file and converting it to PDF is fine, it's Arial and it's readable. This was converted using acrobat.com. But the combination process fails using either the original XLS or the converted PDF.

Fonts Not Embedding Consistently with PDF Export - Inconsistent Fix and Unknown Cause

I have had ongoing problems with PDF export from FrameMaker. Sometimes the correct fonts do not embed in the PDF and Times New Roman is substituted. The problem appears and disappears and is causing me a lot of lost time and frustration.
I am running FrameMaker 9.0 fully patched on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. I have seen people complain about this issue and am familiar with the suggested fixes. However, the exact cause and solution eludes me because the problem continues to recur and I am only able to recover with guesswork and workarounds.
Initially I did the following:
ACROBAT PDF SETTINGS
- In the printer properties for Adobe PDF settings I turned off the option "Rely on system fonts only; do not use documents fonts."
ACROBAT DISTILLER SETTING
Under "Font" Settings I changed the following:
- Under "Settings/Font Locations" I added the font folder for Technical Communication Suite 2.0 and made sure all the fonts existed there and in the Windows default font directory.
- Under "Settings/Edit Adobe PDF Setting/Fonts" I changed the following options:
- Selected "Embed all fonts"
- Under "Embedding" chose "Always Embed" for the target fonts.
I tweaked these settings for hours and got no results. Then I rebooted and the problem had magically disappeared. I fixed the issue in the same way on another machine and the results were permanent and I was just happy to finally have it fixed, But this time it didn't last.
I should note that upon reboot, when I used the stock "PDF Job Options," the correct fonts still embedded, leading me to believe that the fix had nothing to do with the changes I made to Distiller settings.
After reboot I generated PDFs with the correct fonts embedded. Then I shut down FM, but left the system running. The next morning I opened FM again and the same problem occurred.
So I rebooted again -- and the problem disappeared again. I therefore thought maybe the issue fixes on reboot but recurs when you shut down FM and reopen. So I shut down FM again and reopened, but it is still working fine for the moment.
I verified that the Adobe PDF settings under "Printers & Devices" that I turned off (Rely on system fonts only; do not use documents fonts) remained correctly unchecked through all these changes.
I would really like to know why this happens so I can resolve it permanently and avoid more lost time.
Thanks in advance,
Douglas

The common theme I'm seeing here is that the setting edits you make in
Distiller through the FM "Save As PDF" option don't seem to take effect.
Do you know if that is true or could you elaborate on the notorious nature
of this method for me?
>
There are too many potential and transient problems to list. The only thing
I can say is that I've been an active member of the FrameUsers listserv
(http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/listinfo/framers) since FM version 6.0,
circa 2001, and probably 95% of the PDF problems reported there have been
fixed simply by using print to Adobe PDF (or to Acrobat Distiller in older
PDF versions), instead of using Save as PDF. Common advice there has always
been to avoid Save as PDF and even some Adobe employees have recommended
against using it. It doesn't matter which FM version.
The once-busy FrameUsers listserve has been fading away, recently, as this
new Adobe forum software allows reading via e-mail, and attachment of
screenshots. Even if you look around on this forum now, you'll probably
find that there are two main fixes for issues with PDF. One is NOT using
Save as PDF, which seems to fix a whole bunch of issues. The other is the
use of a Windows hotfix to squash a Windows OS bug that causes dropped
characters in PDFs.
In the rare instances that someone has issues with printing to PDF, they are
almost always related to errors in settings. Or occasionally someone can't
embed fonts because they are trying to the embed the virtual fonts that come
with their printer driver instead of fonts that have actually been installed
on their computer. (The fonts are hard-wired on their printer, so the system
can use them but not embed them.)

Bar Code Font 3 of 9 cause NULL pointer exception in PDF export

I am using CR4E 2.0 update 3 and tried to export a report that includes a text formatted with a barcode font (Code39).
When I export the report to PDF with the Crystal Reports Desinger it works fine.
When I export it in our application it generates a NullPointerException at the following line in my application:
exportStream = (ByteArrayInputStream) doc.getPrintOutputController().export(ReportExportFormat.PDF);
Export failed: java.lang.NullPointerException
com.crystaldecisions.sdk.occa.report.lib.ReportSDKException: java.lang.NullPointerException---- Error code:-2147467259 Error code name:failed
     at com.crystaldecisions.sdk.occa.report.application.PrintOutputController.if(SourceFile:237)
     at com.crystaldecisions.sdk.occa.report.application.PrintOutputController.export(SourceFile:147)
     at com.crystaldecisions.sdk.occa.report.application.PrintOutputController.export(SourceFile:128)
     at com.crystaldecisions.sdk.occa.report.application.PrintOutputController.export(SourceFile:111)
     at com.gehcit.ccc.report.ExportReport.writeExportFile(ExportReport.java:222)
     at com.gehcit.ccc.report.ExportReport.export(ExportReport.java:192)
     at com.gehcit.ccc.report.ExportReport.runExport(ExportReport.java:127)
     at com.gehcit.ccc.report.ExportReport.main(ExportReport.java:582)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
     at java.io.ByteArrayInputStream.<init>(Unknown Source)
     at com.crystaldecisions.reports.exporters.format.page.pdf.fontembedding.opentype.tables.ControlValueTable.if(SourceFile:58)
     at com.crystaldecisions.reports.exporters.format.page.pdf.fontembedding.opentype.tables.ControlValueTable.<init>(SourceFile:53)
     at com.crystaldecisions.reports.exporters.format.page.pdf.fontembedding.OpenTypeSubsetter.<init>(SourceFile:56)
     at com.crystaldecisions.reports.exporters.format.page.pdf.fontembedding.FontEmbeddingSession.a(SourceFile:352)
     at com.crystaldecisions.reports.exporters.format.page.pdf.fontembedding.FontEmbeddingSession.a(SourceFile:313)
     at com.crystaldecisions.reports.exporters.format.page.pdf.pdflib.r.a(SourceFile:1538)
     at com.crystaldecisions.reports.exporters.format.page.pdf.pdflib.PdfDocumentManager.if(SourceFile:350)
     at com.crystaldecisions.reports.exporters.format.page.pdf.dom.PdfAdvancedDocumentModeller.do(SourceFile:348)
     at com.crystaldecisions.reports.exporters.page.pdf.AdobePDFExporter.finalizeExportJob(SourceFile:235)
     at com.crystaldecisions.reports.formatter.export2.ExportSupervisorEx.if(SourceFile:652)
     at com.crystaldecisions.reports.formatter.export2.ExportSupervisorEx.a(SourceFile:586)
     at com.businessobjects.reports.sdk.requesthandler.ReportViewingRequestHandler.a(SourceFile:636)
     at com.businessobjects.reports.sdk.requesthandler.ReportViewingRequestHandler.int(SourceFile:672)
     at com.businessobjects.reports.sdk.JRCCommunicationAdapter.do(SourceFile:1942)
     at com.businessobjects.reports.sdk.JRCCommunicationAdapter.if(SourceFile:659)
     at com.businessobjects.reports.sdk.JRCCommunicationAdapter.a(SourceFile:165)
     at com.businessobjects.reports.sdk.JRCCommunicationAdapter$2.a(SourceFile:527)
     at com.businessobjects.reports.sdk.JRCCommunicationAdapter$2.call(SourceFile:525)
     at com.crystaldecisions.reports.common.ThreadGuard.syncExecute(SourceFile:102)
     at com.businessobjects.reports.sdk.JRCCommunicationAdapter.for(SourceFile:523)
     at com.businessobjects.reports.sdk.JRCCommunicationAdapter.int(SourceFile:422)
     at com.businessobjects.reports.sdk.JRCCommunicationAdapter.request(SourceFile:350)
     at com.businessobjects.sdk.erom.jrc.a.a(SourceFile:54)
     at com.businessobjects.sdk.erom.jrc.a.execute(SourceFile:67)
     at com.crystaldecisions.proxy.remoteagent.RemoteAgent$a.execute(SourceFile:716)
     at com.crystaldecisions.proxy.remoteagent.CommunicationChannel.a(SourceFile:125)
     at com.crystaldecisions.proxy.remoteagent.RemoteAgent.a(SourceFile:537)
     at com.crystaldecisions.sdk.occa.report.application.ds.a(SourceFile:186)
     at com.crystaldecisions.sdk.occa.report.application.ReportSource.a(SourceFile:1558)
     at com.crystaldecisions.sdk.occa.report.application.ReportSource.a(SourceFile:337)
     at com.crystaldecisions.sdk.occa.report.application.PrintOutputController.if(SourceFile:223)
     ... 7 more
Is there anything that I did wrong or is it generally not working with CR4E to use a simple barcode font?
When I use ReportExportFormat.MSWord or ReportExportFormat.crystalReports it works fine but unfortunately
out customers insist on PDF. Any help would be appreciated very much.
The bar code font I am using is from http://www.barcodesinc.com/free-barcode-font/
Edited by: Lothar Bernecker on Dec 3, 2009 3:12 PM

I think there's issues with that Barcode TrueType font and Java.
You can try a Java app (such as the sample demo app that comes with Java) and try viewing that font.
You'd need to use a different barcode font.
Sincerely,
Ted Ueda

PDF exports look terrible - white lines in text

I have been u sing indesign for years and years all of the sudden my pdf exports look terrible. The images are pixelated and the text has white lines
in it.
I used these pdf previews for my clients and I certainly cant use what Im getting from INDD right now. I have no idea what happened to cuase this.
Wish I could show you but any ideas would be great.
The following text has no formatting on it yet there are pixelated white lines? help?
Thanks in advance.

Wow - thank you for all the responses. Yes it still happened with different fonts, different sizes of font etc... So I looked at my export settings and noticed that it was set to High Quality Print - Modified. I Switched it back to High Quality Print and it appear to have cleaned it up quite a bit.
Thank you all for your speedy responses.

PDF export size in Pixels

Before, when I exported a PDF from an Illustrator document, the page of the exported PDF would be the same size in pixels as the Illustrator artboard.
Now, for some reason the exported PDFs are bigger than the artboard size. This is consistent now....but it didn't happen before formatting and reinstalling OS,
I've tried creating the projects again, with the same result...
Is there any special setting in the PDF export options?
TIA

Doh.... it's an option in "Preview".

Aliased text on PDF export with blending modes

So I've had this issue with a pdf, I tried to export it CMYK, RVB, interactive pdf, regular pdf, with tons of different other options, the text was still very aliased.
I decided to take it back from scratch, openned a new document with the same size, and copied/pasted element after element from the old one to the new one, exporting as pdf between each copy/paste. The first exports went really well, the render was great… until I pasted a vector element that was applied with a blending mode (overlay).
When I switched it to normal, the pdf export was smooth again. Tried every blending mode, everyone makes the text jaggy. Switch back, it's ok. So I'm 100% sure that this comes from blending modes, as opposed to what I could have read on other forums.
This is a request, please, InDesign team, take care of this problem, this is quite annoying in many cases.
Thank you for your attention!
Twitted here as well : https://twitter.com/grinderlabs/status/448381486627311616

To minmize the possibility of rasterizing or outlining text when transparency is flattened, keep the text above any transparent objects. Blending modes, along with most effects, use transparency.
You can also minimize the risk by exporting the PDF with live transparency, which is supported in Acrobat 5 or higher compatibility.

When I export to PDF, the black text is printing in full color instead of just black

I have Pages 09 (version 4.0.5). I am exporting a document to PDF and emailing it to a copy shop for printing. The document has a color cover, and 36 pages of black text inside. The copy shop is telling me that the pages with black text are printing as color pages instead of black and white pages. I need to figure out how to get them to print black to keep costs down. Is this a problem with my file, with the PDF export, or with their print settings?
Things I've tried...
1. Using the color palette, I have switched to the color sliders mode and changed all the text to CMYK with 100% black and 0% everything else. I have also tried changing it to grayscale with 0% brightness. Neither of these seemed to have an effect.
2. I downloaded the trial version of Adobe Acrobat Pro and converted the PDF to grayscale. This worked, but it's only a temporary solution.
Any other ideas?

Peter,
It's a pretty safe assumption that your average Joe isn't using text styles, but in this case you're talking to a guy who has worked as both a prepress technician and a graphic designer in a former life. I just don't have all the software of the trade at this point in my life. If I did, I sure wouldn't be messing with Pages and Preview. Although overall I'm pretty impressed with them, considering what they are.
Anyway, I am using text styles and I made sure to update them all. The PDF still came out with the rich black color. I have a feeling Pages' PDF exporter automatically converts all black to that four-color rich black on the assumption that you'll want it. I wouldn't care, especially since I'm just printing at a copy shop with no special quality requirements, except that we're printing hundreds of these things every week, and the full color prints more than double the cost.
Thanks for the help, guys! It looks like filtering the PDF through Preview will do the trick. If anybody can confirm a way to do this directly in Pages, I would appreciate not having to go through the extra steps.
Ben

Exporting Highlighted Text from a PDF

I'm creating a publication in Indesign, a pdf of each chapter being reviewed by its author, usually highlighting "keywords".
I need to be able to export text "highlighted" in PDFs as a text file.
In Acrobat XI's Comment/Comments List I get a list of the highlighted items, page and time and choose "Export all to Data File..." which creates a smaller ".fdf" file which is of no use as it needs the source file to open.
Creating a "Comment summary" also adds the fact that the document was highlighted but not the content or text that was highlighted.
The PDF documents I have will be reviewed by their authors and have selected words highlighted and added to an index or reference. I need a simple way of allowing them to highlight the "keyword" in the pdf which I can export as a text document.

I think you're more likely to get a good answer over in the Acrobat forums....

Exporting pdf's to text

I have Acrobat 8.0 Standard.
I can search for words... so the pdf's are not an image but were created from another program. I do not have access to the original files. I only have the pdf's.
When I export to text, html, word doc, rtf, etc, the text is "mostly" right. But there are many instances where characters are just in the wrong spot.
i.e., say the pdf has a couple of lines of text like this
District 24 District 205 District 216
389 .....
The corresponding export text looks like this:
istrict 24 Distict 25 District 215
Dr0389 ......
"Dr0389" is the problem. The "D" is from "District 24" the "r" is from "District 205" and the "0" is also from "District 205".
If I use the select icon and right arrow over the document. It moves from the first D, to the r, to the zero, and then to the number 389 on the next line.
Any ideas? or is it just the engine that converted the original document to pdf that has messed up?
Thanks!

I know PDFs are not intended to be edited, but sometimes you have no choice, and it isn't all that rare. Opening in Illustrator can work after a fashion, but that's no easy trick.
We produce all our PDF newsletters now using InDesign, but for a few years they were made using Quark, and those original Quark files are long gone - all that remains is the PDFs. We are adding these old issues to a searchable database, so I need to add XML tags to all the stories. I haven't figured out a way to do that in the PDF, so I'm trying to put it back into some sort of form where tagging is possible. The pages in these documents are fairly highly designed - text in three columns, pull quotes in boxes centered on the page overlapping all three columns, graphics, etc. - so selecting the text from a whole story is challenging, to say the least. But while labor intensive, it is possible to copy the text, paste into a Word document, then manually kill all the unwanted stuff that came along with the Copy and use a macro of several Find/Replace routines to get rid of all the spurious paragraph returns.
I investigated a promising solution offered by Recosoft (www.recosoft.com) called, appropriately, PDF2ID. It lets you set up parameters, and auto-converts a PDF to a fully-formatted ID file. They offer a somewhat free demo that's both brain-dead (after the first page, the text in the rest of the document is replaced by x's) and time limited. It does a good job of conversion, though. Multiple-column type is rendered with each column as a separate story, so it has to be re-threaded. And it's fairly expensive at $249. But it might be worth a look if you need to do a lot of this.
I'm proceeding with my labor intensive approach. I just have to do about 30 issues, each of which I can convert to taggable Word docs in about a half hour. Very tedious, so I'm doing one a day. Then I'm done.

Overprint Text in PDF export

I am using Freehand MX 11.0.2 on Mac Leopard 10.5.2
In a couple of circumstances I noted that black text (100%K),
even when "overprint" is selected at the text's color palette, and
the layout exported as PDF (CMYK), but the black text does not
overprint – at least when I check opening the PDF in
Photoshop, the black text there is spared on the background.
Did others note the same problem or am I just doing something
wrong here...?
Thomas
http://www.zugergrafik.ch
Grafik Design Zug
http://www.ecliptic.ch Graphics
and Illustrations

> In a couple of circumstances I noted that black text
(100%K), even when
> "overprint" is selected at the text's color palette, and
the layout exported
> as PDF (CMYK), but the black text does not overprint
Thomas, you are doing nothing wrong. Freehand's PDF Export
function is not
suitable for professional printing jobs.
See this technote. The last line of the technote refers to
your problem.
http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_13496
Get Adobe Acrobat Pro/Distiller.
From Freehand, print to a Postscript file. In Freehand's
advanced print
settings, ensure that the correct PPD has been selected. Use
either the
'Adobe PDF' PPD or the PPD of the Postscript printer that
will be used to
print the document.
Then use Distiller with 'Press Quality' settings to convert
the Postscript
file to PDF.
Judy Arndt

Hi, I have used PDF export for some years. One file will NOT convert to readable text in Word. Some

Hi, I have used PDF export for some years. One file will NOT convert to readable text in Word. Some headers and maps in this document are converted OK but the body text is garbled. I have tried converting to Docx, Doc and RTF with no success. I disabled OCR and it made no difference. What can I do please?
Les

Hi,
Can you please provide me the file with which you are facing the issue.
Thanks

PDF export causes text to be pixelated (continued)

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