Overprint Preview in Acrobat not Working

[prepress cindy]

I have been using this feature for years and have never run into this issue. I just started with a new company and I am given multi page PDF files (we print magazines), I have had many issues with white text being set to overprint and not being caught till press. I bought Pitstop to help, and so far the 2 examples I have Pitstop did not catch either one (currently have an email in to them on why it did not work). The thing that baffles me is when I view the page with the overprint preview on in Acrobat and look at each separation it appears to be knocking out. Does color space have something to do with it? Ive tried GRAcol and SWOP. Ive tried different settings in Acrobat for overprint: always, never. The files are set up in InDesign, is there something there that is causing this? I tried to upload a file to this post but its not working. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[abc]

Hi Cindy

Can you send the file to me, andrewb@enfocus.com

We'll take a look and get back to you, if you can include as much detail and some contact info that would be great

Regards

Abc

[Lukas Engqvist]

Are you using PDFx1a or PDFx4?
Is the text knocked out when you have overprint preview on?

Could it be your RIP that forces overprint on text? Try dissabling trapping to see if it is a configuration error with your trapping of text. (Some rips have a force overprint on K that can quirk if the text originally was in K and then is set to 0%K)
Also be sure that the text is not disappearing.

[prepress cindy]

ABC- I have sent you an email thank you.

Lukas: I don;t think it it is either of the PDF formats you listed. I have asked for the settings from InDesign when they create the PDF and the Standard is None and the Compatibility is Acrobat 5 (PDF 1.4).
Yes the text appears to be knocked out with overprint preview turned on. The rip is not creating the problem because if you open the PDF in Illustrator you can see the text has been set to overprint complete with the warning icon.

[prepress cindy]

Wow I just figured it out. It has something to do with the custom setting they have been told to use for making the PDF from InDesign because if I use the "High Quality" print setting everything comes out as expected and Pitstop found the issue. So now a preset needs to be created that will work for the Digital presses and will show white overprints correctly. What setting was causing this?

[rich apollo]

I'd like to see the file. I have a suspicion, but would want to check it first.

[Stiv]

We may have a similar situation here. AcrobatX is previewing the PDF using the embedded profile and not showing the actual color.

If I have a PDF with solid CMYK patches and I save it with an ICC profile the colors are viewed as being processed through the profile and not as the actual solid CMYK values.

There is a check box to view as actual colors but this is causing a lot of issues.

[Lukas Engqvist]

ICC managed white text with overprint enabled in Illustrator? O.o an axident waiting to happen.
Use PDFX standards that's what they are there for!

[MacDaddy]

I have exported a ton of pdf's out of InDesign.

These are the setting that work best at least this is my opinion.

Press Quality
Compatibility Acrobat 4 (pdf 1.3)
Compression uncheck compress text and and line art.
Under advance select flatten transparency to High quality.
I have InDesign set up to use US sheet-feed coated color profile
So that is what I export it to. This has seemed to fix any issues I every had.

[Stephen Marsh]

I agree with Lukas that PDF/X standards are a good option. Another is using presets from the Ghent PDF Workgroup.

Acrobat Pro has some good preflight profiles and single fix-ups, a screenshot is attached.

An Illustrator only plug can be found here (yes, I know that these are multi-page PDF files and that Adobe does not recommend opening PDF files into Illustrator):

White Overprint Detector Information

Stephen Marsh