Mystery of the Absent Artwork Contest Answer and Winner!
It’s time to reveal the solution—and the winners—for this month’s InDesignSecrets contest!
Here’s the scenario:
You’ve prepared a full-color ad that will be printed in a magazine. In your InDesign file, there are just two items, a background photo saved as a JPG, and a vector logo saved as a PDF.
But when you receive a proof of the ad, the vector logo is missing. This proof is accurate, and if the ad is printed as is, the logo will not appear.
Why does the logo disappear in the PDF?
The answer is that the logo was filled with white and set to overprint.
When an object is set to overprint, it will not knock out any underlying items. And since the logo was filled with white, it won’t be using any of the inks in the print job. That’s why it disappeared in the proof, and why it won’t appear in the printed output unless it is fixed by changing the overprint setting.
In this case, the logo was a PDF embedded in the InDesign file. So to remove the overprint, you would first unembed the logo in the Links panel.
Then open it in Illustrator, and use the Attributes panel to remove the overprint.
Note that InDesign has its own Attributes panel (Window > Output > Attributes) that you’d use to set or remove overprinting of native objects.
And the winner of this contest is…
Shane Smith
Shane wins a license for FlexDoc, a cool plug-in for setting up documents with folds and die-cuts.
Thanks to everyone who entered, and be on the lookout for another contest with a new great prize next month!
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Just to add, the logo was filled with either ‘Process Global’ White or ‘Spot’ White and not the default Process White swatch (that is present in the Swatches panel). The Process White swatch is unaffected by the Overprint Fill setting in Illustrator’s Attributes panel.
FWIW, Illustrator has 3 Color Type swatches : Process, Process Global, and Spot whereas in InDesign, the Color Type is Process Global or Spot.
OK, wow fun but, really, people do that?
I gave up on this one, because I don’t know how to embed a PDF. How did you do that? If I copy the contents of a PDF in Acrobat, I get jus a text box with the text of the PDF and it’s file info. Same for a PDF created in Word or InDesign and opened in Acrobat.
So does “embedding” a PDF only pertain to Illustrator PDFs?
If I copy the contents of a “PDF” created in Illustrator, I get the “PDF” but nothing shows in my links panel.
Unlike an embedded .jpg, which does show in links. Then there is no way to un-embed it as a PDF.
Is that because I am still in CC2014.2?
If I wanted the pain of CC2015 I’d see embedded PDFs in my links panel?
Bret, you can Place a Link into InDesign, then right click in the Links Panel to Embed it. As long as the file is still around, you can Unembed Link the same way.
The fact that the logo was embedded in the InDesign file is just coincidental. The same problem would happen if it was a simple link to the art.
Bret: Yes this actually happened to me personally, about 3 weeks ago, with the CreativePro logo on top of an image! Luckily I didn’t have to pay for the first run of the (small) print job that had the missing logo. That’s where the idea for the contest came from.
Totally agree. We don’t see this as often as we used to, but it’s still something that can catch any printer off-guard. Lately there are a lot of checks and balances to try and prevent this:
1) Illustrator CC itself – when making a new illustrator file, there is the option to “Discard white overprint on output” – more information from Adobe’s site here: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/white-overprint.html
2) InDesign’s preflight – it will warn for this phenomenon, if the preflight profile you’re using has that as one of the items to look for
3) In Adobe Acrobat’s preflight – again, a preflight can be run that will warn about this phenomenon
4) (sometimes) If the item is being printed by a commercial printer, their RIP has further preflights that can warn for this as well. From personal experience, AGFA apogee and Fuji XMF can warn for this (if told to) but unsure about others.
I’ve found that white overprint can sneak into files from older illustrator files where a black version of a logo (with overprints turned on) has been manually changed to a white version of a logo but without the overprints being turned off. If the file is placed into ID (or cut/pasted into ID from AI) then the phenomenon can present itself in InDesign.
Can also happen with parts of images that are AI and placed, one example I wrote about in my blog (In Dutch but you still can understand the example shown in the inages):
https://fvdgeest-dtp.blogspot.nl/2008/11/overdruk-in-illustrator-ipv-in-indesign.html
This happened to me and was immensely frustrating! Fortunately I spotted it when making the print pdf. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was (I had imported a third party ‘white’ logo, exactly like Anne-Marie’s experience). I ended up pasting the logo directly into the InDesign artwork and colouring it ‘paper’. Printed fine.
Ha! Yes people do this, it’s one of the first things I check.
I was too busy to enter this time, but a good comp to highlight something that can drive you crazy. Well done alround
:)
Oh yes, I meant to add, a common reason for it happening is a logo/artwork being changed to white from black which had previously been set to overprint.
It happened to me once, years ago, all the way to the printer (on a book cover, of course), Since then, I’ve always checked my work in Acrobat with the option to see the Overprint on. So far, I have always caught it before sending the work to be printed. Touching wood. :)
Working in prepress… it happens regularly. People do not realise how to setup artwork. Not a big deal. That’s what checks are for. Worst one was a white set in a PSD with a transparent background set over a spot colour. All I got was a PDF and no settings revealed this. The digital print was fine. The litho was not.