Why the Checkerboard?
May 31st, 2006Sometimes you’ll see the checkerboard pattern on a spread in the Pages palette (indicating that there is some transparency on the page somewhere), but you might not know what is causing it. Perhaps everything looks opaque on the page, but that pattern tells you otherwise. Many people don’t realize that adding a drop shadow or using feathering adds transparency. Similarly, a PSD, AI, or PDF file that you imported may include transparency without you knowing it, and it’s important to pay attention to transparency when it comes time to print or export your pages.
To figure out where the transparency is, open the Flattener Preview palette (Window > Output > Flattener Preview) and choose Transparent Objects from its Highlight menu. Any object on the page that has transparency applied will appear with a red overlay. All other non-transparent objects will appear as a light screen of gray. Close the palette to turn off the preview.
(By the way, this palette really shouldn’t be called Flattener Preview because it doesn’t preview anything at all! I just gives you an alert that something is transparent. I think Adobe should change the name to Flattener Alert. But that’s just me.)
I recently designed an invitation that when printing to my ink jet came out fine. When printing to a postscript the transparent. Sections were printed with a funny looking box around them. What is causing the problem?