Comments on: Set a Swatch to Overprint

By: Jim Pennington

Jim Pennington — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:19:51 +0000

excellent advice. particularly useful when I wanted my silver to overprint when it was going to be foil blocked and not litho-printed.

By: Shawn A. Krueger

Shawn A. Krueger — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:22:00 +0000

Cari had the best advice: “Talk to your printer!” Most modern rips have more intelligent trapping options than just overprinting anything that is 100% black. For instance, they may have settings to automatically overprint black text and strokes up to a certain size, and beyond that, use the regular trapping settings (usually to choke into a black solid).
It is easier for them to turn these options on as needed, and not always so easy to undo universal overprint-all-100%-black setting, once it is in a PDF file.
I would actually say to err on the side of leaving this option off unless they specifically tell you that is how they want it. But, always talk to your printer first.

By: David Wolfe

David Wolfe — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:54:15 +0000

Andre, you mention that you’re using a “special Black.” You should note that no spot colors–even those defined as 100% black–will overprint unless you explicitly set them to overprint using any of the methods shown on this tip.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:38:31 +0000

A late thanks for this tip, Anne-Marie! It will definitely benefit my current publication.

By: Linda N

Linda N — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:08:42 +0000

I received a pdf from a customer. There was white type on top of a greyscale photo that was on top of a blue box. The white type knocked out of the photo, but overprinted the blue box beneath the photo. What caused that?

By: Jason Thomas

Jason Thomas — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:59:07 +0000

Hi, work in a printers and the blacks in my indesign 3 do not overprint.
I have tried manually overprinting my blacks too, still no joy, bearing in mind i export these files to eps.
Indesign cs2 and 1 work perfectly in this area. Anyone else get the same?

By: andre

andre — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:16:32 +0000

Thanks! I have two different layers of text, both with a special Black of 85%. Default should be knocking these out, and I didn´t use any attributes/styles or swatches setting for overprint. One layer is overprinted and the other is knocked out….WHY?

By: Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:16:32 +0000

One more permutation of this tip. As far as I can tell, selecting an image frame and setting its stroke and fill to overprint (via the Attributes panel) doesn’t make the frame’s contents — the actual image — overprint. Just the frame’s stroke, and any fill that’s visible. To make the image itself overprint, you need to select it with the Direct Selection tool and change the Blend Mode from Normal to Multiply, in the Effects panel.

By: Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:13:51 +0000

Cari, thanks for the heads-up! I can definitely see where a printer might have that option turned on, thinking they’re helping.

By: Cari Jansen

Cari Jansen — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:25:03 +0000

In regards to using the 100% “myBlack” colour for knockout Black: Talk to your printer. As I’ve encountered a number of printers who enable a setting on their RIPs that automatically sets all 100% to overprint.

Another work-around would use 99.9% Black. You can create a Tint Swatch that is 99.9% Black if you use this a lot. (it will show up as 99& in the swatche panel, but will be 99.9%).