December 3 2006 • 6:53 PM

Eliminating YDB (Yucky Discolored Box) Syndrome

Steve Werner has posted an excellent solution to the Dreaded White Box (DWB) syndrome, wherein you see white boxes around shadows and other transparency effects interacting with spot color content. The answer, as Steve points out, is for your print service provider to turn on PostScript Overprint at the RIP. (And, for correct viewing in Acrobat, turn on Overprint Preview.)

Dreaded White Box

But there’s something similar to the DWB syndrome that occurs on many digital printers, from our in-house laser printers up to the big boys like the Xerox iGen3. This is YDB: Yucky Discolored Box syndrome, wherein, well, yucky discolored boxes appear under shadows when printed.

Yucky Discolored Box Syndrome

The discoloration is due to the printer’s RIP not correctly exercising overprint. Even a gen-u-wine PostScript Level 3 printer such as my beloved Xerox 8400 can’t pull this off.
I’ve tried converting all my inks to process, and turning on “Simulate Overprint,” and I still get the YDB syndrome. Previously, I’d been resorting to using Acrobat’s “Print as Image” as a solution, but Adobe engineer Matt Phillips opened my eyes to an easier method during the Seattle Master Class, right there in InDesign. Thanks, Matt! I have to say “Duh! Why didn’t I think of this?” The answer is to have InDesign act as a RIP.

Create a Transparency Flattener Preset that completely rasterizes everything:

  1. Edit > Transparency Flattener Presets, click on “High” as a starting point, and then click “New.”
    In the ensuing dialog box, yank the raster/vector slider all the way to the left. Set the linework resolution to the printer’s res (say, 600), and set the gradient/mesh resolution to, oh, 150. (I think you’ll find shadow appearance satisfactory at 150. If not, go to 300.)
    Save as a new Flattener Preset.
  2. File > Print, and under Output, choose Composite CMYK, and CHECK the “Simulate Overprint” checkbox. Under Advanced, select your all-raster flattener.

InDesign creates a conglomerate sheet o’pixels—vector and text will be rasterized at the linework resolution, and shadows and feathered edges are generated at the gradient/mesh resolution. There’s good news and bad news, of course. The good news is that your output will look correct—no YDB syndrome. The bad news is that an exceedingly complex page could take some time to process, and could generate a big honking print file to clog up your printer.

78 Responses discussing this post. Add yours below.

  1. December 3rd, 2006 • 7:08 pm • Link

    Just to remind that you can create and assing this specific Claudia flattening preset to only specific spreads (via the Pages palette flyout menu) but apply another flattening setting to the rest of the document via the Advanced panel.

  2. Peter Hutchinson
    December 3rd, 2006 • 7:47 pm • Link

    On my printers at work and at home I was getting YDB until I turned OFF all colour managment settings in the printer driver and used the correct ICC profile from InDesign. Hope this helps.

  3. Jean-Claude Tremblay
    December 3rd, 2006 • 8:40 pm • Link

    I think Peter is right, the YDB syndrome is most of the time due to the printer driver applying different color managent policy to vector and raster objects. Turning off these driver setting and allowing Indesign to do it is the solution.

  4. Steve Werner
    December 3rd, 2006 • 11:17 pm • Link

    Great post, Claudia, and welcome to InDesignSecrets.com!

    If you choose an RGB-based printer (like my inexpensive Epson C88), InDesign even warns you to turn off color management in the driver. On the Color Management panel of the Print dialog box, to the right of the Let InDesign Determine Color choice is a little blue “i” for Info. In the Warning section below InDesign warns, “Remember to disable color management in the printer driver dialog box.”

  5. December 4th, 2006 • 1:11 am • Link

    I do find the Epsons easier to deal with than my Xerox Phaser (don’t get me wrong–I love it). But the print dialog for the Phaser offers only two options: “PostScript printer determines color” or “No color management.” Either gives me YDB. The only way I get clean output with decent color is to take the all-raster approach, and it’s worked for clients with HP PretendScript printers. If I’m missing something in the print dialog, please point me there. I do have a surprising capacity for ignoring large flashing red icons :-)

  6. josh
    December 4th, 2006 • 1:54 am • Link

    i also have a phaser and i see the same things when printing spot colors with transparency. would love to know about any tricks in the driver/printer settins.

  7. David Blatner
    December 4th, 2006 • 6:12 am • Link

    Welcome, Claudia! It’s wonderful to have you as a contributor to InDesignSecrets! Y’all can learn more about Claudia by clicking the Contributors button in the navigation bar along the left side of the screen.

    Yes, the whole double-color-managed thing can cause problems. InDesign color manages stuff and then the printer driver goes and color manages some more. You definitely need to be clear about when the printer driver (in the Print dialog box) will be changing colors and when it won’t be.

    That said, I think Claudia’s (and Matt’s ;) ) tip is a great one. One more note about this: I think you have to have at least one item on each spread that is transparent, or else the flattener won’t kick in. But even a small black square set to .01 opacity should do it.

  8. December 4th, 2006 • 7:39 pm • Link

    Josh,
    In addition to the “rasterize everything” approach, I have success with this:
    -”PostScript printer determines color” in the InDesign print dialog
    -under Image Quality in the Printer dialog, I choose:
    Print Quality: High/Resolution
    Photo and Color Correction: Commercial Press

    This achieves decent output on plain paper, and does not suffer from either DWB or YDB.

    Of course, this may be specific to the Phaser. I am curious what works for others.

  9. December 5th, 2006 • 4:09 pm • Link

    Interestingly, my 4-yr-old OkiData 5300n (clone PS3 rip), a 4/C toner laser printer, has no problem with overset settings. I print shadowed type on top of colored backgrounds (including spot Pantone) quite frequently and have never seen the YDB syndrome…. knock on wood.

    FWIW I use the stock High Res flattener and keep the color management turned off for the printer.

    I still think OkiData’s are one of the unsung heroes of the graphic design industry (I’ve ranted about this on the podcast before). Their clone RIPs are phenomenal and this makes their printers really affordable.

    I was glad to see that in the latest Macworld magazine, an OkiData is one of their top picks for a color laser printer.

  10. December 5th, 2006 • 4:22 pm • Link

    And I’ve printed to Ricoh Aficio printers (also genuine PS L3) that have no problem and require no special treatment. My take on this is that devices may use true PS L3, but don’t exercise every single PS operator.
    I’m looking forward to the PDF Print Engine being implemented in desktop printers. Of course, by then, we’ll have come up with something else that looks good onscreen but is challenging to print: “my holographic 3D effects don’t look right on my Mattel printer!”

  11. David Blatner
    December 5th, 2006 • 5:21 pm • Link

    Color laser printer technology has changed rapidly in recent years. I loved the Xerox Phaser that they loaned me for a while. They make great printers. But when the printer went “home” recently, I purchased a Dell color laser printer for $500 (it’s a Lexmark under the hood).

    It’s really very adequate, uses Genuine Adobe PostScript 3 (which I insist on… been burned too many times by clones) and although I had a few problems getting it to show upon my network (ironically, I had more problems getting it working on my Windows machine than my Mac), tech support was good, it’s working now, and I can print wirelessly to it via my Airport Express router.

    What is somewhat crazy-making, however, is that the printer is $500 (and comes with toner for 5000 pages), but the toner refill is about $400!

    I completely agree with you, Claudia, that the PDF Print Engine is the way to go. But I don’t expect to see it in low-end office printers for quite some time.

  12. Jason Cutler
    December 7th, 2006 • 12:21 am • Link

    We use a Xerox DocuColor 5065 (that’s a 250 in the Northern Hemisphere) which is nice, but the Fiery RIP it uses still gets the discolored boxes. The Xerox uses some fancy Spot-color matching software to translate Spots to CMYK values. Only problem is their values don’t match Adobe’s and I’m told there is no easy way to export the Color Lookup Table out of the Fiery, so it can be made into a Swatch for InDesign. I think if the RIP and InDesign both use the same CMYK values the problem will disappear!

  13. December 9th, 2006 • 9:53 pm • Link

    David said:

    But when the printer went “home” recently, I purchased a Dell color laser printer for $500 (it’s a Lexmark under the hood).

    While Lexmark makes many printers for Dell, unless something’s changed recently, the Dell color lasers are actually manufactured by FujiXerox.

  14. Tom
    December 11th, 2006 • 3:00 pm • Link

    Claudia,

    I have followed all your instructions, and it has solved the YDB but has created another. I have used two blocks of grey, and they now have a yellow tinge to them. Any ideas?

  15. December 11th, 2006 • 3:50 pm • Link

    Jason, have you tried using ID’s Ink Manager to convert all spots to process during the printing process? That may be an end run around the problem.

  16. Jason Cutler
    December 14th, 2006 • 3:40 am • Link

    Thanks Anne-Marie. I had tried this in Acrobat when we were trying to print PDFs. I tried “Print as Image” and “Convert All Spots to Process”. Both attempts failed- the boxes stayed and there was some wild color shifting as well. In the end using Photoshop as the rasterizer worked, but was a slow and unecessary step. I haven’t tried it in InDesign’s Ink Manager though.

  17. December 21st, 2006 • 3:44 pm • Link

    What a huge help this was to me. I was ready to throw ID out the window. (Or my beloved Xerox 8400). Yippee!

  18. January 5th, 2007 • 9:55 am • Link

    Just a quick pointer on this thread.

    I have got around this problem printing to an Epson R300 by exporting to a flattened pdf (the earlier pdf files could not handle layers). By doing this everything is flattened and, where necessary, rasterised.

    Hope this helps.

  19. james
    January 11th, 2007 • 2:06 am • Link

    Claudia, this works from getting the YDB out, but the printouts also came out less saturated on our Xerox lasers.

  20. Melissa Hendricks
    February 12th, 2007 • 10:21 pm • Link

    I don’t know if it is the same as YDB syndrome, but our InDesign files always suffer from Annoying Box Around a Graphic Syndrome. The graphics are generally those with transparency. We suffer from YDB on our laser jets (not a problem since these are for proofing), but the ABAG syndrome occurs on the Xerox printers in our print center. Are the solutions here the same or are there special tricks to overcoming this dreading syndrome?

  21. Melissa Hendricks
    February 12th, 2007 • 10:24 pm • Link

    One more thing–We PDF our files (to protect ourselves from their “graphic designer improvement program”) using the High Res Print option as a jumping point. We set our crops and such there.

  22. February 13th, 2007 • 2:20 am • Link

    Melissa,

    The big Xerox printers (like the Docucolor and iGen boxes) also suffer from YDB. Try some of the workarounds and let us know if they help.

  23. raymo
    March 2nd, 2007 • 10:53 pm • Link

    I use a Roland print and cut machine in a signmaking environment and have found that saving the file as a tiff eliminates the problem, however colours sometimes change which is a problem in itself!

  24. April 3rd, 2007 • 2:18 pm • Link

    Actually, you designers are all idiots, Convert you spot colors to CMYK…Which shouldn’t be a problem since it is a four color printer. Oh, and just so you’re all aware, Black prints first on iGen’s, so dont stupidly overprint it.

  25. Leslie
    April 11th, 2007 • 2:55 pm • Link

    Thank You! I tried some of the other work-arounds that others suggested but ultimately the one Claudia proposed is the only thing that worked on our HP LaserJet 9500.

  26. Andy
    May 10th, 2007 • 9:19 pm • Link

    I have tried the work-around and what has happened is that the entire background, not just what’s under transparency, becomes YDB. THe entire background becomes lighter. Also, I have turned off the color managment in the printer driver and have had no success. How would a novice such as myself know what the right color settings are in ID if that also needs to be reset? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

  27. Tom Glowka
    August 2nd, 2007 • 4:38 pm • Link

    Claudia

    I get gray box under shadow type that is printed to a ps file then distilled. Tried your method but no success. The DGB is still there.

  28. Dave
    August 15th, 2007 • 2:03 pm • Link

    I never have any trouble with the YDB from my Xerox (Techtronix) Phaser 7700 but I do when I send my file to be printed on an iGen. I’ll ask them to eliminate the color management in the printer driver and see how that works.

  29. Melissa Hendricks
    August 23rd, 2007 • 2:46 pm • Link

    In reply to Person from April 3rd! YES!!! After much debate and troubleshooting–we found that our Print Center (YES our PRINT CENTER) was requiring Pantone Spot for production on a XEROX CMYK machine!!!! Hello! We woke up and went right back to good ole CMYK. What good is a Pantone if you’re not even separating?? I could only wish you had posted months and months back! Sadly, though you CALLED US idiots…Not to sound tragic, but we were just doing what we told to do. Being a self-taught graphic designer (and not too bad a one at that) leaves you at the mercy of the production end. This leads to mistrust and anger because I just knew that the problem was fixable. Our PRINT CENTER had the nerve to tell us that InDesign couldn’t handle transparency/drop shadows when I had been using CMYK with transparency/drop shadows without an issue. So, in our defense–the idiocy can occur on both ends…

  30. August 23rd, 2007 • 8:11 pm • Link

    *I* certainly didn’t call anyone an idiot! I apologize on behalf of that poster, who must have been having a bad day.

    Your print center isn’t misleading you: There *are* good reasons to send spot color files to printers like the Xerox machines: they have look-up tables that can accomplish better matches of the intended color if they receive spot info. However, the downside is, as you’ve see, YDB Syndrome. Some print centers note the spot-to-CMYK conversion numbers in the lookup tables, and modify the InDesign or Illustrator files to use those values. Then they send the jobs as CMYK, and all is well. It’s a workaround, but it’s an idea.

  31. David Blatner
    August 23rd, 2007 • 8:23 pm • Link

    No, Claudia… not you. Someone earlier in the thread. Thanks for the great info!

  32. October 9th, 2007 • 2:24 pm • Link

    The reason YDB happens is because the embedded color profile of the image with the transparency differs from the color profile of the object behind it. In order to make the transparency match perfectly, both the front and back object need to have the same ICC tag applied.

  33. December 27th, 2007 • 4:22 pm • Link

    We are finally making the big switch to ID after years of Quark and immediately encountered YDB syndrome. Claudia’s remedy took care of the problem on our Ikon 650 printer. Thank you!

  34. Paul B. Cutler
    February 8th, 2008 • 10:02 pm • Link

    Turning off color management worked for me on a Canon C1 ImagePress. Thanks for the tip Peter Hutchinson.

    pbc

  35. Linda N
    March 14th, 2008 • 5:14 pm • Link

    Claudia, Will File ? Print, and under Output, choose Composite CMYK prevent the file from separating as the black and spot plate? I work at a newspaper where spot must be retained. Thanks

  36. David Blatner
    March 14th, 2008 • 5:22 pm • Link

    Linda: No, composite CMYK keeps the spot colors. To convert spot to process, you would use the Ink Manager.

  37. Linda N
    March 14th, 2008 • 5:40 pm • Link

    Hi David, Thanks for the response. I just did a test file. When we send a job back to our dataflow, it will proof the seps and it did separate into CMYK instead of retaining the spot color. I then checked our online proof and it too is now cmyk because it is based on what prints. Maybe I’m missing something.

  38. Linda N
    March 14th, 2008 • 5:41 pm • Link

    The file itself is still spot, but that doesn’t help when the job outputs for the presses.

  39. Linda N
    March 14th, 2008 • 5:43 pm • Link

    Too bad you can’t edit your responses. My workaround is to create a mixed ink of 100%black and 1%of the color underneath. This seems to work on 2 files I’ve tested.

  40. Frank R.
    March 26th, 2008 • 5:46 pm • Link

    Opened pdf in Photoshop (which rasterizes entire file) and printed on Xerox 7700 and Wha-La YDB Syndrome was gone!

  41. Mateo
    May 9th, 2008 • 7:32 am • Link

    Jason Cutler, did you manage to find a solution for the Xerox machine? Because I’ve encountered the same problems on a Docutech 12.
    Simulate overprint did not work and turning off CMYK-simulations on the EFI/FIERY EX12 RIP did also nothing.

  42. Mateo
    May 9th, 2008 • 7:36 am • Link

    Oh yeah, I used an cPDF sheetCMYK v1.3. The transparencies are flattened down and there are no spotcolors of what so ever.
    I found this quite disturbing…

  43. Rob
    January 26th, 2009 • 6:54 am • Link

    Brian, you mentioned that the front and back objects must share the same ICC tag. How do you do that?

  44. March 26th, 2009 • 7:58 am • Link

    Awesome post. I’ve been struggling with this problem for weeks and now it’s fixed (using the method you described). I can’t tell you how many print jobs I’ve made trying to get this straightened out. Finally. Thanks,

    Tom

  45. Scott Sharon
    April 13th, 2009 • 11:08 am • Link

    We produce only CMYK output (no spot) and this problem only appears if we write a pdf from InDesign that has both drop shadows and gradients present. If it only has either a drop shadow or a gradient, it appears fine. If we write it as an eps file, everything looks good.

  46. Eric
    April 17th, 2009 • 11:24 am • Link

    Great forum! It helped me a lot in InDesign. However, I need to export to pdf since many times I have to do 100 copies of a 10 page document. That, as you know, would take forever to print in InDesign (CS4). However, when I go to print using Acrobat Reader I get my YDB back or my colors are very faded.

    Any suggestions? Thanks so much!

  47. Eric
    April 20th, 2009 • 10:51 am • Link

    Okay, I figured out how to export to PDF properly so you will not get a YDB.

    1. Choose Export to pdf in InDesign and choose your save location.
    2. Select the “Advanced” tab on the left list.
    3. Under the Standard drop down box choose: PDF/X-1a:2001 (after a test print and your colors aren’t right, choose PDF/X-1a:2003 and test)
    4. Select your saved flattener
    5. Export to location!

  48. November 11th, 2009 • 3:28 pm • Link

    I am useing a roland printer with roland versaworks
    Can anything be done in the rip program to stop the yucky white box even when i change the setings as above if i save as a PDF i still get the box but if I save as a EPS no box any ideas for me?

  49. Claudia McCue
    November 11th, 2009 • 6:19 pm • Link

    David,
    Are you saying that if you submit a PDF to the RIP you get the white box, but if you submit an EPS to the RIP you don’t? If so, this implies that the RIP doesn’t correctly process PDFs (or perhaps not the particular flavor of PDF you’re feeding it). Does the job involve spot colors? What settings are you using for the PDF?

  50. Chris
    March 24th, 2010 • 11:22 am • Link

    “2.File > Print, and under Output, choose Composite CMYK, and CHECK the “Simulate Overprint” checkbox. Under Advanced, select your all-raster flattener.”

    I would love to have a solution before saying this is wrong but I was taught in graphic design school that text and line art should not be rasterized. You’re going to get pixelated edges on your text and art. This is why we place fonts and line art that are usually eps files into InDesign.

    I’m also reading a lot of comments where people are trying to convert pantone colors after they have created their file. If you know you are printing on a CMYK printer then you should be building your files with CMYK. This will save you lot’s of headaches from weird printer issues.

    I don’t know what backgrounds and education people have on here but I thought this was common knowledge for graphic designers.

  51. March 24th, 2010 • 11:26 am • Link

    @Chris: Yes, of course you are correct in a perfect world. However, this is for digital printers, such as proofing inkjets, and only for when there is no other solution. As for background and education, you’re not going to find anyone with a better prepress background than Claudia. ;)

  52. May 17th, 2010 • 11:55 am • Link

    I’ve self tought InDesign as i reall needed to in order to reduce our bills, as our business more or less depends on leafl;ets and brochures therefore we always design different ones, so they are not boring. I had this problem so many times and found it very annoying, will definatelly have to try this out and see if it works, thanks ever so much for a great post, we need more of those especially for those like me who are having to learm Indesign themselves.

    many thanks again
    dash t

  53. Wim
    August 24th, 2010 • 11:38 am • Link

    GREAT GREAT GREAT AFTER HOURS AND HOURS I FIND THIS REALY GREAT POST!!!! IT OPENED MY EYES TO AND MY XEROX DOCUCOLOR 260 FINALLY PRINTED WATH I NEEDED!!!!

    THX A 1000.000 times!!!

    GREATS FROM BELGIUM

    WIM

  54. Derek
    November 4th, 2010 • 8:30 am • Link

    Kind of an old thread, but hopefully I’ll get some response…

    Situation: Exporting a pdf from InDesign. Has process and spot colors with some drop shadows on a few elements. None of the drop shadows overlap spot colors. I’m getting YBD on every one of the drop shadowed elements. I need the spot colors to stay in the file, as they are company colors and have to match their collateral.

    InDesign CS4
    Acrobat 6 Pro
    Fiery RIP (ver. 1.1 of Fiery X3eTY2 65_55C-KM)
    Konica Minolta BizHub c6500

    I don’t know if it helps, but I applied a special test color profile to the file that drops the cyan and yellow out and boosts the magenta and black. Everything converted, except for the YDB areas. They stuck to the same colors they output with any profile selected. So, it looks like the YDB areas are simply ignoring ALL color management. I wish I could just flatten and rasterize the whole thing. :(

    Any ideas?

  55. Claudia
    November 4th, 2010 • 9:11 am • Link

    Here’s a painful (but possibly helpful) thought: I don’t have Acrobat 6 any more, so I can’t look up the dialog box, but in the Print dialog, if you click the Advanced button, you should see the “Print as image” button. This does rasterize everything on the way out (in effect, letting the computer be the RIP). It’s slow, but it may be the answer to your problem. However, this is a sticky setting, so you’ll have to remember to turn it OFF the next time you print.

    Let me know if this helps…

  56. Derek
    November 4th, 2010 • 10:11 am • Link

    @Claudia: Wow! I wasn’t expecting a response that quick! :)

    Well…it kind of worked. It eliminated the YDB, but everything got pretty pixelated and rough around the edges. Also, it eliminates the spot colors, so I can’t get those to match up with the color books without altering the rest of the image.

    It’s looking more and more like this is a RIP issue, though…especially since outputting to our Xerox Docucolor 12 or the office laser printer looks fine. I think I need to call in the techs and hope they can do something.

    Thanks for the quick response, and hopefully I can come back with some good news later. :)

  57. Derek
    November 18th, 2010 • 9:25 am • Link

    Well, we finally got the Fiery RIP updated, and lo and behold, no more YDB. I had a feeling there was a Postscript translation problem going on. Thanks again for the quick reply, and I’m glad to know that I wasn’t just going crazy. ;)

  58. Les
    December 15th, 2010 • 12:50 pm • Link

    I’ve gotten this fixed before by changing the line screen to rotated cluster dot under Image in the Fiery settings. This was for a Xerox260, printing from PDF.
    It’s another trick in the bag to use on this problem, if nothing else.

  59. Frustrated Printer
    February 21st, 2011 • 5:51 am • Link

    • Spool as CMYK only.

    or

    • Disable Spot Colour Matching.

    or

    • Enable Composite Overprint.

    Ugh. This is a simple and very common problem, for those of you who are sending jobs to commercial printers that don’t know how to work around transparency and spot colours – find a new print shop.

    For printing in-house, always send just cmyk and you’ll avoid the hassle (All spot to process in ink manager).

  60. Scott
    April 4th, 2011 • 11:08 pm • Link

    It’s great to have access to these forums and discussions.

    I understand some of the gripes from the gurus here, but really this is what these places are for – and let’s be honest the production managers of old are few and far between these days so everyone needs all the help they can get.

    Anyway the reason I’ve posted is not to carry on the banter but rather note that I discovered (with the help of all the posts here) how to dismiss the issue discussed. My ID file when PDF’d had a problem printing a text drop shadow over a transparent background leaving that dreaded grey box. Simply by switching the CMYK colour correction in the ‘colour options’ print dialogue to ‘no correction’ on our offices Xerox Docu-centre IV the grey box disappeared on my following print out. Only explanation might be that the printer is over compensating – as always trying to be too clever for it’s own good.

    Hope this helps someone.

    PS No spot colours in my job – only CMYK all the way.

  61. Nick
    April 26th, 2011 • 12:42 pm • Link

    This trick does work and i don’t have to use step 2 as pointed out above, the only downside is that the vector elements are now raster so they get affected by the output profile in the rip. I have the RIP set up so the vector elements are not touched by the output profile and this is why the YDB syndrome appears. The way we get around that is to convert the raster files with the output profile and RIP the postscript files without a profile.

  62. Stuart Beatty
    May 3rd, 2011 • 6:54 pm • Link

    Using a Canon C1 Imagepress. None of the suggestions worked for me. I don’t think it’s got anything to do with colour management – well, not for me anyway. What DID work, finally, was, in the print dialogue box in InDesign, clicking “Printer”. clicking the drop-down to “Fiery features”, clicking the “Full properties” button, selecting the “Colour” tab, and checking the “Composite overprint” check box. Fortunately this problem doesn’t occur often! Adding a second colour to the background colour fixes the problem about 95%.

  63. Edd G
    August 22nd, 2011 • 3:41 am • Link

    HELP!!
    I’m trying to export a full page advert created in ID CS5 to a high quality pdf to send to a magazine publisher.
    They have requested a pdf of 300 – 350 dpi including bleed & Trim.

    When I create a pdf I get the YDB, i’ve tried ‘Eric’s’ formula above which has eliminated YDB but has now given a feint white outline box where the YDB was before.
    If I produce an interactive pdf the problem totally disappears but I can’t include the bleed or trim on this.
    I’ve tried the total rastering also.

    Please help, the artwork deadline is fast approaching!!

  64. Claudia McCue
    August 22nd, 2011 • 5:30 am • Link

    Edd,

    The white lines do not print; they are a display artifact in Acrobat. If they bother you, go to the Page Display preferences in Acrobat, and turn OFF Smooth Line Art.

    The lines are indications that transparent objects have been flattened during PDF creation. This happens when you create a PDF with version 4 compatibility (for example, PDF/X-1a). To get rid of the white box (or missing shadows), turn on Overprint preview in Acrobat (launching Output Preview in the Print Production tools will do this). You’ll only see this if you have spot colors in the file. Make sure you do not have spot components that are intended to print as CMYK (since you’re sending to a mag pub, I suspect everything should be CMYK, but that’s not always the case).

    Short story: if your file is built correctly, ignore the lines and any white boxes or absent shadows, if they appear correctly when you turn on Overprint Preview.

  65. Claudia McCue
    August 22nd, 2011 • 9:12 am • Link

    Edd,
    I forgot to add — the reason you don’t see the lines and other artifacts in the Interactive PDF is that it’s a later-version PDF (v. 5 or above). Thus, transparency is not flattened, and you don’t see the “seams.”

  66. Edd G
    August 26th, 2011 • 5:37 am • Link

    Claudia, Thank-you.
    That is a big relief!

    The requirement is for CMYK for the ad. I’ve made sure all the colours in ’swatches’ are CMYK but how do I know if there are any spot’s on the page? Sorry if this is outside of this thread parameters.

  67. Claudia McCue
    August 26th, 2011 • 6:29 am • Link

    Edd,
    To determine if you have unwanted spot colors on the page, go the the Swatches panel menu and choose “Select all Unused.” Delete the selected swatches.

    Now to determine if spot colors are used: Go to Window > Output > Separations Preview. If you see any spots listed, turn off the eyeballs by CMYK to see the remaining objects: those are the spot objects.

    To fix any unwanted spots, either apply another (CMYK) swatch, or convert the spot color to CMYK.

    Hope this helps! (And let me know if you find spots)

  68. Edd G
    September 2nd, 2011 • 2:51 am • Link

    Again you’re a star!
    I didn’t have any spots [phew!]
    And the seams or thin white lines that appear on the .pdf display do not print.

    I’ve advised the Mag of the situation and asked them to trial it before publication but the proof will be in the pudding as it were come November when the mag is published!

    Many thanks for all your help and for helping me and countless others with this pig of a problem!

  69. Max
    January 26th, 2012 • 6:44 am • Link

    your solution worked perfectly – thank you very very much indeed! :)

  70. Kim
    February 11th, 2012 • 4:50 pm • Link

    As a designer who only does artwork to send to various printers, I seem to be encountering this issue a lot lately. What is the best method for eliminating the box when I am not handling the production end? Is it to simply turn convert the spot colors to CMYK? I need to be able to create a PDF that I can be relatively sure won’t have any issues, as I have to send them to printers around the south.

  71. Claudia McCue
    February 11th, 2012 • 5:44 pm • Link

    Kim,

    If the inks are not intended to print as spot colors, then, by all means, convert them to CMYK. Sounds like you’re sending jobs to a digital printing workflow (as opposed to offset printing). If that’s the case, they can’t print spot anyway, so nothing lost.

    Does this help?

  72. Kim
    February 11th, 2012 • 6:40 pm • Link

    @Claudia – Thanks for the quick response! If converting to CMYK fixes the issue, then that is what I will do. And yes, I am sending jobs to be printed digitally. In the past I have worked with a machine (small IKON) that could handle spot colors, so I wasn’t sure what would give me the best result. I’d much rather have minute color differences than weird boxes around things! Thanks again, and I will pass this along to my design team.

  73. Claudia McCue
    February 11th, 2012 • 6:53 pm • Link

    Kim,

    Let us know how it goes!

    –Claudia

  74. March 16th, 2012 • 11:02 am • Link

    Ok, hey everyone! Firstly thanks for posting on here, i’ve been reading all of the posts and now I am officially confused, but more informed. Please can you help me?!!!!
    My indesign file is all cmyk, the border around the edge has a little woman doing a wheelie in black, and her background is supposed to be clear, which it is in photoshop and indesign (5.5) and then when i pdf it off, I don’t get the seams as described by some poor souls above, i get this lighter shade of orange or whatever colour is behind the woman. i wondered if it is something i am doing when i export it to pdf? i am exporting to pdf print with printer marks and bleeds.
    As this catalogue is being litho printed, please please tell me that i dont have to spend my weekend opening up each page of the 108 page book and changing the woman etc etc and that it only happens on digital printers like my little laser one here (how i discovered the problem and had a small heart attack!)
    Many thanks and good luck to you all, i very much appreciate posters,
    Charmaine

  75. March 16th, 2012 • 11:18 am • Link

    @Charmy: There is a chance that it is only on your desktop printer. If you’re going to send this to press, use Acrobat’s Output Preview feature to check the plates themselves. Or talk with your printer and ask them if you’re going to have a real problem.

  76. Karl
    April 12th, 2012 • 9:31 am • Link

    I have worked as a graphic designer for years, using mostly Illustrator and Photoshop. Just now am I starting to work with a beginner who is using InDesign, and this article, and everyone’s helpful comments were the key I needed to solve the YDB problems I was being asked about by the beginner. THANKS EVERYBODY!!!
    Always take a look using the Overprint Preview in the View menu!

  77. valve90210
    April 26th, 2012 • 7:43 am • Link

    I’m so glad I found this page as I have just started using InDesign after years of using Quark and I am having this problem with some posters I have created for a client.

    I have supplied the posters in PDF format where they have looked perfect but when the client prints them on their RICOH copier/printer the bounding boxes of objects with transparency have been a discoloured version of the background colour.

    One work-around I have seen for this is to create a transparent photoshop file the same size as the whole document and place it just above the background colour layer. This seems to have worked but I’m guessing (as I have only seen a fairly poor quality scan of the printout) that this is merely making the whole document printout with the incorrect background colour?

    Is there any other way to get round this problem when creating pdfs?

    Any help would be very very much appreciated!

  78. Doug
    May 2nd, 2012 • 7:06 am • Link

    I followed the instructions, then fiddled with my printer settings to disable any “color corrections” it was making. I am shocked by the result! The colors are so much better! I wish I had known that my printer was messing with my colors all these years!

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