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Error displaying print production files
with Viewer in the Document Cloud

16. August 201913. August 2019 by Stephan Jaeggi

PDF files that are stored in the Adobe Document Cloud (e.g. using the Share function) have an individual link that can be used to display the document with (virtually) any Internet browser (without Acrobat/Reader Viewer installed).

Unfortunately, when rendering PDF pages, some PDF functions (e.g. overprinting, transparency, ICC profiles), which are frequently used in PDF print production files, are not processed correctly. For illustration I uploaded Ghent PDF Output Suite 5.0 (PDF/X-4) to the Document Cloud and got many errors:

Disastrous PDF/X-4 compatibility
with new Affinity Publisher

24. July 201911. July 2019 by Stephan Jaeggi

The final version 1.7.1 of Affinity Publisher has recently been released. In the media, this program has already been considered an InDesign killer. The feature overview is indeed very promising. Regarding PDF/X support, the following statement is made on the website:

«You can also open, edit and output PDF/X files.»

Two years ago this claim was already made for the vector graphics program Affinity Designer 1.4. Then I tested Affinity Designer 1.4 using the Ghent PDF Output Suite 5.0, the internationally recognized standard test for PDF/X compatibility. The result with Affinity Designer 1.4 was disappointing. I was curious to see if the new Affinity Publisher – a multi-page layout program where secure PDF import and export is even more important than for a vector graphics program – would now have better compatibility with PDF/X-4 files.

OpenType SVG fonts clarified
in PDF 2.0 (ISO 32000-2:2020)

11. July 201911. June 2019 by Stephan Jaeggi

In the past couple of weeks I have reported several times on problems for display and output of OpenType SVG fonts with Adobe InDesign CC2019:

Above: Display in Adobe Acrobat Pro
Middle: Display in Apple Preview
Below: Display in Callas pdfToolbox

CorelDraw 2019 with PDF/X-4 – or not!

28. March 201928. March 2019 by Stephan Jaeggi

More than 10 years after the introduction of PDF/X-4 finally CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2019 now adds support for PDF/X-4. At least that’s what the manufacturer claims.

I courageously installed the trial version and did some practice tests.

First I imported some PDF/X-4 files. CorelDraw tries to convert the PDF files (including text) into the Corel format. You can choose between Text and Curves. With the “Text” option, font substitution is often used and the text is completely torn. The conversion of the text into curves (vectors) is better, but is not exactly considered “state of the art”!

Warning about OpenType SVG fonts
in Adobe InDesign CC2019

30. April 20193. March 2019 by Stephan Jaeggi

A few weeks ago I advised caution with new SVG fonts in Adobe InDesign CC2019. (These are also called color fonts). Meanwhile my fears have been confirmed.

Christian Blaise, a French colleague from the Ghent Workgroup (GWG), has done extensive testing and published two english articles on his blog:

We recently discussed this issue in detail in the Process Control Working Group of the Ghent Workgroup, which I am chairing. The results were as follows: