White Overprint Preflight?

Is it just me or is there not a setting in Acrobat's preflight that will alert you of white objects set to overprint? I saw white text set to overprint but not anything else. We recently had a file that had some white outlined text set to overprint and it looked fine on the pdf but did not print once sent to the printer. I know I can use the overprint preview but if there's a lot going on in the file it would be real easy to miss a small object.
Flightcheck has this option as do I believe InDesign, but I don't want to have to send everything through InDesign and would prefer to not have to purchase another program when Acrobat has a preflight built in.
Thanks!

So I built a simple file with white outlined text in Illustrator. One word was set to knock out and the other to overprint. Saved as a pdf and opened in Acrobat. Viewed the overprint preview and the white set to overprint disappeared as expected. Then I went through every "White object is not set to knock-out" profile preset and all of them came back with a no problems found. Even though it obviously is not set to overprint. Even checked it with PitStop and it shows set to overprint.
Baffling!
any ideas?
Thanks!

Similar Messages

Can I set Preflight to detect non-white overprints?

Hello,
I have set up a preflight profile that automatically checks for white overprints, but we have had a few issues where non-white objects haven't been detected and without knowing what the original color is supposed to be it's not obvious by looking.
I am aware of the overprint preview toggle and of the option to highlight overprint in Output Preview. I was wondering if I could save a step/simplify things by setting my preflight profile to automatically check ANY overprint, not just white.
Thanks!
Emily

Have you tried Invert Colors : ON

White overprint - Why does it exist?

Hello!
Can anyone give me academic answers to the following questions:
1. Why are white objects allowed to overprint in Illustrator?
2. Is there any situation in which the only way to achieve a desired look is with a white object set to overprint?
3. Why wouldn't you want Overprint Preview on pretty much all the time?
I'm a prepress technician at a label printing company, and so these questions are obvious from a printing point of view. We have a big customer whose art department is constantly sending us files with overprinted white copy, and it'll disappear unless we catch it (often, the copy was black on the previous version of the art, and the customer's art dept. changed it to white without unchecking the Overprint option). Like many, I worked in Freehand many years ago and remember it disallowing overprint on white objects.
I'm figuring that some good answers will come from outside of the print spectrum, but maybe from within as well. Thanks in advance!

Actually, the first part of the post by Teri,
The only practical use of overprint would be setting a SPOT white ink to overprint, such as one would use in silkscreening.
was merely a repetition of the previous post by John, then followed by:
Not true. In Illustrator 8, we made it impossible to set process white to overprint, and restored the ability in Illustrator 9, mainly at the request of packaging customers like Coca-Cola and Mattel.
The main application is when making an object blend that is meant to go from white to some process color, and then overprinting that blend onto a colored background. If you can't set the white to overprint, it will caused unwanted knockout of the substrate color.
In AI 8, customers had to work around this problem by applying a very small amount of any process color channel that existed in the object being blended to to the nominally white object, so that the blend was between, say 1% cyan and 1% black to 100% cyan and 50% black, instead of from white. They resented having to do this, especially since they had files made in earlier versions of Illustrator that had to be modified in order to print correctly.
Apart from that, the discussion went on, about the continued justification in new(er) versions.

White Overprint

Hello World
I've had a client hand me a .PDF that they want printed. (Blue/water/sky background with white text overtop of it).
On screen it looks fine. Naturally, when I go to print it, the white disappears. I don't have the fonts and the artwork was not converted to outlines so editing the actual document isn't an option on my end. Is there any way in Acrobat to have it print as is? Or do I need to get them to edit the file and send it back to me? Is there any way to turn off the overprint from Acrobat?
As far as I can tell, I'll need to edit the file. Am I correct in this thinking?
Any input would help.
Cheers

So I built a simple file with white outlined text in Illustrator. One word was set to knock out and the other to overprint. Saved as a pdf and opened in Acrobat. Viewed the overprint preview and the white set to overprint disappeared as expected. Then I went through every "White object is not set to knock-out" profile preset and all of them came back with a no problems found. Even though it obviously is not set to overprint. Even checked it with PitStop and it shows set to overprint.
Baffling!
any ideas?
Thanks!

PDF with white text, or not?

OK, so I have and PDF file with some white text according to my own programm, and it seems to be set to overprinting.
I have asked about this subject before, but failed to make myself clear enough. This question will be more clear, at least I hope.
This is the file in question: http://www.4shared.com/document/Sn7nSydh/error_detected.html
In that file the Adobe PreFlight is NOT detecting white text that is set to overprint, but my own code does...
And this file the Adobe PreFlight and my own code agree, there is white text that is set to overprint: http://www.4shared.com/document/S9-3F59t/GWG_test_file.html
So now for my question. Were am I going wrong? I think I must seek the error in the colors. So we have two colors when puting out text in a PDF; stroking and non-stroking. When the stroking is set to CMYK(0, 0, 0, 0) and the non-stroking is set to CMYK(0,0,0,1) then we really have white text, and when the Graphic State op (overprint) is set to True, the text is set to overprint...
When the stroking is set to CMYK(0,0,0,0) and the non-stroking is set to somthing like CMYK(0.1, 0.4, 0.5, 0.9) the text is not white, so we are done checking??
I you can bare with me one this one. Thanks!

You are correct that each object can have two colors - a stroking color and a fill color - but the only color(s) that are relevant are the one(s) needed by the specific drawing operators. If you set the stroke color to be something in RGB (for example) and the fill in CMYK, and just fill the object, then RGB is never used and wouldn't be found by a check. Same is true for things like white overprint. The text in that PDF is filled and not stroked, so the stroke color isn't relevant.
In addition, for that file, I don't see OP being set to true at any point related to the text.

Acrobat 9.3.3 and Preflight

After updating to 9.3.3 I noticed that some of the features are missing (or moved). Under Advanced/Print Production the "Preflight" menu item is gone and so is the view option of "Overprint Preview."
Have these been removed or have these items been repackaged and located elsewhere? If so where? I use preflight quite a bite to look over ads.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Jon,
I was missing quite a few features. It was a glitch. Overprint/preflight options were all gone under that menu.
ssv,
Yes the uninstall/reinstall worked. I am up and running again. I am guessing something went wrong with running the update. I am running 9.3.3 and everything is fully functional.

Simple shape in white not printing

I've never seen this before. I have a simple white shape with a logo on top.
The shape itself sits on a coloured background.
So far I only used this in a document and exported it as a pdf.
But today I had to print the document and now it turns out it doensn't
print the shape. I did a few tests in ID and AI. When I colour the shape
any other colour then white it prints but as soon I colour it back to white
the shape doesn't print anymore. I have a native postscript 3 printer.
What on earth could be wrong?
AI CS5.5
ID CS5.5

You might be interested in a plug-in called WhiteOP2KO (White Overprint To Knockout), from www.worker72a.com, that checks for White overprint in CMYK documents. They offer several versions with varying features (a free version that checks and puts up a findings dialog, a slightly less than free version that checks but doesn't say anything unless it finds something, and then a more full featured version that can actually fix problems).
No connection; just a satisfied user.

Print issue with type?

Hi all,
I wonder if you can help me here? I am getting an issue will illustrator CS3 when I send a document to print some of the text goes missing on the print out? This only seems to happen with white text?
I have tried creating a new document and pasting the file in and i still get the same issue (in fact I get the problem with multiple documents). Does anyone know what this can be and how to fix it?

Always look at View : Overprint Preview before you send to print. (Or check separations in your pdfs under Advanced : Overprint/Output Preview in Acrobat.)
That white overprint thing has caused a lot of expensive angst because it reappeared in Illustrator 9-ish after having been absent since Illustrator 3. Caught a lot of people by surprise. Obviously an overprinting white is basically the same as No Fill/Stroke which doesn't make much sense unless you have special transparency effects running. It usually happens when overprinting black objects (especially type) are altered to white. Illustrator doesn't generate proper warnings when this is done, so you must keeps your eyes wide open.

MORDY MY TOP 40 ILLUSTRATOR CS 4 QUESTIONS:

MY TOP 40 ILLUSTRATOR CS 4 QUESTIONS:
1) Do print presets retain number of copies now?
2) Also, do sublayers behave normally with respect to locking/hiding?
3) Do swatches stay in list few now?
4) Can we set a default tool to be selected at startup?
5) Is there an auto-save feature
6) Has the link info palette been updated?
7) Can guides be different colors on different layers?
8) Can we change the colors of layers yet?
9) Is overprint preview sticky when toggling back and fourth to artwork view?
10) Can we add a swatch from a library by searching in the find field and hitting enter?
11) When open previously saved documents, does this window zoom to full screen or slightly off-center as before?
12) Can we outline all text without having to first select all text?
13) Does the scroll work for palettes, dialog boxes now?
14) Can we make keyboard increments larger than 18"
15) Can we create shortcuts for palette items?
16) Can we customize where rulers appear on screen, like bottom right?
17) Is there a select whole objects function yet?
18) Can we delete links within the links palette yet?
19) Is there a way to un-embed an already embedded image without relinking?
20) Can we tile open documents now, vertically or horizontally?
21) Can we turn off white overprinting?
22) Are there more right-click options?
23) Are there more objects to select by under Object>Select?
24) Does Find Font no longer change to the type tool automatically?
25) Is there any embed button in the links palette?
26) Is there an "Ignore All" button when asked for missing images?
27) Can swatches be more than 1 spot color?
28) Can center points be disabled by default?
29) Are there more system swatches (black/white/cmyk/rgb)?
30) Has the place command been changed to "Import/Command + I"?
32) Has Export been changed to Command + E?
33) Has Import & Export been placed next to each other in the file menu?
34) Has hide been changed to Command + H?
35) Is there a history palette?
36) Is the control palette customizable?
37) Can we rotate the page view?
38) Can we make larger artboards?
39) Do we have user-defined units of measure?
40) Can we select all unused layers?

Boy, I gotta tell ya, Mordy, that is some seriously strained logic.
To me, it's just the reality. A while back, I made the choice to use Illustrator. I don't use any other vector drawing program. Overall, for the type of work that I do, workflow is more important to me than anything else. If one could look at an app as an island, then yes, I might consider other apps, but that just isn't the case. This was also one of the driving forces behind my adoption of InDesign. Sure, on a feature-by-feature comparison, InDesign and Quark may still compete. But that competition is moot in my opinion, because I don't care nearly as much about individual features as I do about the overall workflow.
Back to Illustrator, from the "big picture" there are too many things that Illustrator can do that none of its competitors can do. Sure, break everything down to one feature here and one feature there, and you have the ability to say the Corel possess one thing here, FreeHand something here, Canvas yet another, etc. But again, at the end of the day, Illustrator has the toolset that affects my workflow. For example, being able to export a validated PDF/X-1a file is more important to me than an Eraser tool that distorts open paths. Being able to bring artwork reliably into Flash is more important to me than a ruler that can be repositioned to the bottom right of a page.
James, it's obvious from the discussions that we have had other years, that you and I do very different types of work. Sure, there's overlap -- but I don't do the kinds of technical drawing that you do, and while a project will come up here or there where I need to worry about how a plotter will interpret vector paths, that isn't the norm. So maybe my logic and your logic are on two trains, on two different tracks, going in two different directions.
To put it in perspective, the issue of not being able to slice paths correctly is somewhat of a nuisance to me. I totally get why such a feature would be important, though. But that issue is one I have to deal with from time to time. Bleed support is something that has been a huge pain over the years, considering how often I define art in Illustrator which I then place into InDesign. I have to slice paths 1 or 2 times a month. I have to place Illustrator art into InDesign several times a day.
At the end of the day, all I'm trying to say is, I know what tool I will be using each day. It will be Illustrator. That's my own decision. If AI has a shortcoming, I have to find a way to deal with it. That's the sad reality of it. I shell out enough cash to buy the Suite because overall, it is a total design solution. No other design company offers the tools that Adobe does in one package. Sure, I could decide to fill my hard drive with tons of other apps, but that's a decision I choose not to make. My work also must be compatible with others, and so using Adobe products, which are considered the standard in the industry, is par for the course. As is the support for accepted standards WITHIN Adobe products (CSS, PDF/X, etc.).
On my computer, I have 3 folders of apps. Apple apps, which are basically the iLife ones and my new fave, Keynote. Microsoft ones--Office of course. And Adobe apps--Master Collection. That's my choice (we all have that right). You can accuse me of being a lemming if you want. I've been called worse. But at the end of the day, for the most part, I am pretty happy with the toolset I've chosen to use.
:) Mordy

Text disappears in PDF

I was sent a logo - in Illustrator - from another company. It was made up of line artwork and a couple of lines of text. All the lettering had been outlined.
I included it in a larger Illustrator doc, and when I created a PDF via Distiller of the whole thing, one of the lines of text in this logo didn't appear on the PDF, even though everything else showed up ok. Because the missing text was outlined, there wasn't much I could do in the way of changing/adjustment.
I got round the problem by re-typing the line myself, and that showed up on the PDF, but no matter what I did with the original supplied line of text it would not appear on the PDF
Any suggestions?
Using a Mac 10.4.11 and CS3

O.k., that's what I imagined. Overprinting white has caused a lot of discussion elsewhere on this forum. There's a script for removing it but I can't remember just now what it's called. Otherwise you can Select Same... and remove overprints manually. Anyway, glad it's solved and remember ALWAYS to look at Overprint Preview before you make your pdfs. White overprinting is pretty nonsensical really unless you're using transparency effects. Reckon the Illy team ought to disable it so that you can only do white transparency effects through the Transparency palette and not through Overprint. That's the way it always was in Illy 5 and onwards or until they invented transparency.

MUST HAVE Features for CS4 ----------Post Here!!!

I'll get the list started with my top 11 wishes in no particular order:
1) The ability to Rotate Effects
2) Separation Preview
3) Keyboard Increments greater than 18"
4) Larger Artboards
5) Artboard handles
6) The ability to outline all the text in the document without having to select it
7) Select all Unused Layers option
8) Print Margins in the print dialog box
9) Multiple Artboards
10) Multi-color swatches
11) White overprint detection
Now your turn!
(start with number 12)

> It's barely functional.
Ryan,
How is it more "functional" to create a thread open to any and every feature request subject--with no organization to it at all?
One of the reasons the Feature Request sub-forum becomes "useless" is the insistence of some people to create such ill-conceived catch all threads.
How is anyone served by a "whatever comes," batch of individuals' feature request lists
within the feature request forum--with no more subject organization than "This is the grab-bag that was started by some guy with a screen name of Rydog23"?
Don't you understand that for anyone to get any use out such a thread, they would have to read each and every post in it to see if a particular feature idea has already been mentioned?
What more assured way is there for a good idea (should one be suggested) to fall into a "black hole"?
Please stop creating these ridiculous no-subject grab-bag threads.
JET

Why has part of an image not printed from pdf file?

Hi, I have recently used Indesign to do the layout for a press advertisement. I exported the file as a High Quality pdf file to send to the printer. The logo on the advertisement has not printed out correctly - the text part of the logo is showing but not the surrounding graphic. When you export and view the pdf file onscreen, everything looks fine. The graphic part of the logo is white - would this have anything to do with why it has not printed? What options should I have checked/unchecked to make sure the pdf prints exactly as it is seen onscreen or is it a problem with the logo file itself?
I would appreciate any assistance.

Gopalboopathy wrote:
Hi
if the logo is placed in front of the tint/backgrounds, if it's reverse the tint/background same color will be applied and the percentage of the color has been changed to 0%. it will works fine rather than changing the overprint/knockout. hopes it works.
I'm afraid I don't understand waht you are trying to say here. The white in a logo should generally never be set to overprint. The only way I can think of to get any interaction between a backgorund and a white overprint is to use a blending mode, and that would affect the other colors as well, typically not what you want in a logo situation.
This is a mistake in the construction of the original art, not a problem at can be fixed directly in ID.

Cant get any Batch Script to run

Hello together,
first of, Thank you for this community.
It´s a shame, i can´t get any Batch script to run.
For example a PDF making Batch with a folder selection.
I always get the alert, no matching files found.
I use cs 5 on a g 5 with osx 10.8.2
here is the script.. should not be a big thing !?
why does no file fit in the "mask" ?
here is the script
ADOBE SYSTEMS INCORPORATED
Copyright 2005-2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated
All Rights Reserved
NOTICE: Adobe permits you to use, modify, and
distribute this file in accordance with the terms
of the Adobe license agreement accompanying it.
If you have received this file from a source
other than Adobe, then your use, modification,
or distribution of it requires the prior
written permission of Adobe.
Export to PDFs.jsx
DESCRIPTION
This sample gets files specified by the user from the
selected folder and batch processes them and saves them
as PDFs.
Edits by Patrick Mineault:
- only .ai files processed
- files saved in same folder as the input files
- export files have name (oldname)_export.pdf
- PDF settings: non-editable / acrobatLayers=false
      for maximum compatibility with Preview
// Main Code [Execution of script begins here]
// uncomment to suppress Illustrator warning dialogs
// app.userInteractionLevel = UserInteractionLevel.DONTDISPLAYALERTS;
var destFolder, sourceFolder, files, fileType, sourceDoc, targetFile, pdfSaveOpts;
// Select the source folder.
sourceFolder = Folder.selectDialog( 'Select the folder with Illustrator .ai files you want to convert to PDF');
// If a valid folder is selected
if ( sourceFolder != null )
    files = new Array();
    fileType = "*.ai"; //prompt( 'Select type of Illustrator files to you want to process. Eg: *.ai', ' ' );
    // Get all files matching the pattern
    files = sourceFolder.getFiles( fileType );
    if ( files.length > 0 )
        // Get the destination to save the files
        //destFolder = Folder.selectDialog( 'Select the folder where you want to save the converted PDF files.', '~' );
        destFolder = sourceFolder;
        for ( i = 0; i < files.length; i++ )
            sourceDoc = app.open(files[i]); // returns the document object
            // Call function getNewName to get the name and file to save the pdf
            targetFile = getNewName();
            // Call function getPDFOptions get the PDFSaveOptions for the files
            pdfSaveOpts = getPDFOptions( );
            // Save as pdf
            sourceDoc.saveAs( targetFile, pdfSaveOpts );
            sourceDoc.close();
        alert( 'Files are saved as PDF in ' + destFolder );
    else
        alert( 'No matching files found' );
getNewName: Function to get the new file name. The primary
name is the same as the source file.
function getNewName()
    var ext, docName, newName, saveInFile, docName;
    docName = sourceDoc.name;
    ext = '_export.pdf'; // new extension for pdf file
    newName = "";
    for ( var i = 0 ; docName[i] != "." ; i++ )
        newName += docName[i];
    newName += ext; // full pdf name of the file
    // Create a file object to save the pdf
    saveInFile = new File( destFolder + '/' + newName );
    return saveInFile;
getPDFOptions: Function to set the PDF saving options of the
files using the PDFSaveOptions object.
function getPDFOptions()
    // Create the PDFSaveOptions object to set the PDF options
    var pdfSaveOpts = new PDFSaveOptions();
    // Setting PDFSaveOptions properties. Please see the JavaScript Reference
    // for a description of these properties.
    // Add more properties here if you like
    pdfSaveOpts.acrobatLayers = false;
    pdfSaveOpts.colorBars = false;
    pdfSaveOpts.colorCompression = CompressionQuality.AUTOMATICJPEGHIGH;
    pdfSaveOpts.compressArt = true; //default
    pdfSaveOpts.embedICCProfile = true;
    pdfSaveOpts.enablePlainText = true;
    pdfSaveOpts.generateThumbnails = true; // default
    pdfSaveOpts.optimization = true;
    pdfSaveOpts.pageInformation = false;
    pdfSaveOpts.preserveEditability = false;
    return pdfSaveOpts;
is my problem really that stupid ?
is it only working in cs 3 ?

Mr. Schneider, Brilliant =) and weired
on windows 7 it runs perfectly. even with the prompt commented out ?!?!?!
Why is it not working on a maC ?
now i have so many more ideas to optimize my workflow...
i´am not shure how to get into this ..
if i have to send out datafiles i have to do several things.
1.collect images and fonts
2. throw unused colors away
3. check if there is white overprinted,if yes fixing it.
4. put black on overprinting
5.clean up empty textfields, unfilled objects, and usesless anchorpoints
6.unlock everything
7. save the ai
8.convert in paths
9.save an *_path.ai
10.make a printable PDF with our XYZ. Joboptions
11. preview pdf, optional with a watermark sized 100% 100% to the artboard / artboards
12. wonderfull would be a print out
this is just a wishlist.. i want to learn it. . how to do
will be a hell of scripting or not ?
is it usefull to do somethings in an action and load the action as a script ?
In scriptinghappiness best greetings from Germany..

PDF has white areas due to overprinting?

I'm printing from a clients PDF file and it has blank white area where one of the images should be. When I turn on simulate overprinting the graphic appears. Is there a was to do a conversion in this pdf so that when I rasterize it inside photoshop or send it to a rip that the areas don't come up blank? Thanks.
Marcus

I tried running various preflight analyze and fix settings and none of them make the white object print as it should, which is not white but a vector graphic. But when I turn on simulate overprint the object does show up. But when I try and rasterize in PS or send it to my Colorburst RIP I get white. Idealy I would make the PDF myself from the clients Indesign file, but they are often just middle men themselves and have nothing to do with the file creation.

Overprint issue with white type.

We have been creating Digital PDF successfully for over 10 years. This is a problem that comes along once in a great blue moon.
Please read complete text before forming an opinion or answering the questions. The focus of these questions are on Digital AD's from outside vendors/customers.
We create our publications using Quark 6.5 on Windows XP
(We are locked into this version because of some other proprietary software tied into Quark, so upgrading Quark is not an option for us).
We compose a page of some type, some MAC EPS Illustrator 5.1 files and at least one Digital AD (PDF's which are from our advertisers/customer that we pre-flight) on to the page.
Print the page to a postscript file, distill postscript file with Acrobat Distiller Ver. 7 on PC's into a PDF file with Crops and Registration Marks.
We got a PDF (Digital AD) from a customer that was created in InDesign CS6 on a Mac. There is some white type in the AD ( See Photo Below)
The Last "E" in Engineered is selected in each screen shot.
The Top one is the AD untouched before Pre-flighting it. The White Type "E" letter is set to knock out and is still type (not converted to outlines).
(Pitstop is showing this in the dialog box on the right)
In the Bottom screen shot the type has been converted to outlines and is set to overprint.
First problem is white type should never overprint. Unless you specifically set it to in the original program.
This type was originally set to knockout and then when it was distilled from a Postscript file from Quark into a PDF with "Preserve Overprint Settings" check in (Distiller Settings) the type is converted to outlines and the type was set to overprint.
(If I turn off "Preserve Overprint Settings" and re-distill the postscript file the type doesn't convert to outlines or change to overprint.... it remains a knockout.)
Second Problem is catching this while using preflight tools. I have Pitstop tools to show Overprinting and Acrobat has a Output Preview/Color Warnings/Show Overprinting feature too.
Using Pitstops Overprint does show it in the inspector window, but not a Pitstop report.
Acrobat's Show Overprinting does NOT show that the type has been set to overprint.
So our workflow now is to flag any white type and check it throughout the whole pre-press process to make sure the type holds the knockout function.
Below is a scan of how the type ran when it was printed on sheet feed printing press paper.
Talk about overprinting... this is not what it looked like in the above pictures.
I am aware of this problem from Illustrator. It's an order of operations when dealing with white type.
If you set type, change the color to something other than 100% black and then convert it to outlines... it will knockout.
If you set type, convert to outlines and THEN change the color from black to white, it will hold the overprint from being black type.
It doesn't always do this every time, but it does happen enough that I have to double and triple check my white type.
Questions:
Does anyone have this problem in their workflow (White Type Overprinting) and do you have a solution to better catch this when you have to process 50+ AD's each week?
Obviously anything with white type will be looked at much closer now that this AD got through. It would be nice if these settings would hold through the whole preflight to printed piece process.
Any Words of Wisdom would be appreciated too.

You can set Pitstop up to catch this and even fix it.
In the preflight profile, under 'Text', select 'White Text' and add it to the list of checks, you can also enable the fix as well so it's just resolved.
I'm using PitStop 11 update 2, but it's in earlier versions as well.
If you need futher information you can always drop me a mail. I am the Product Manager for PitStop, [email protected]

White Overprint Preflight?

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