Alright... I'm not 'feeling' the the response to TexasJoes original question, it's just not all there...
Joe asked: Are their any
solutions? It's kind of annoying not being able to see what I get.
You said it Joe.
Indeed, a real
solution will allow us to educate ourselves, make a change or modification to our settings or workstyle, make a better product and then move on with our lives. A
work-around would consist of: Blaming Adobe, or our own ignorance, and putting a little sign at the beginning of every .pdf file " Please turn off 'Smooth Line Art, then back on Next page"
With this particular issue I have yet to read a solution. Changing a setting in Acrobat Reader is a WORK-AROUND, since in the following case it is reliant on the END-USER to make the fix.
The 'stitching' as it is so appropriately called, looks to me, and for good reason... like Antialiasing. I'm confident this is true since the actual 'work-around' to make the stitching dissapear is not 'to be more smooth,' which is funny
(If that were the case then I could caress my computer and it would run faster.) Rather, I learned about a year ago that the only trick to making that damn stitching go away (temporarily) is to UNcheck smooth Line Art in Edit > Prefs > Page Display (7.0pro) (similar in 6).
Designer:"Oh, and by the Way Bob, before you look at that perfect design of mine, can you just go to Edit > Preferences > Page display... and fiddle with those Smooth thingies there...?"
Bob: "What?"
NOW... that plain sucks, because in my case, I am encrypting my .pdf and restricting printing to a password I may or may not give my client (It's my portfolio afterall.) Meanwhile, the .pdf is 300dpi, 11.5 Mb, with placed/linked .AI, .PDFs, .jpegs etc, There are light DROP SHADOWS to give that 'paper effect' all over the place and a few Transparent fills here and there floating over and under other objects (usually contained in the original files.) In order to maximize the ON SCREEN quality and look, I never used a raster image if I had a Vector version in .pdf or .ai. to use instead.
At any rate, the output from .INDD needs to be near perfect.... period, and given the quality of the placed/linked files (all of which I might add support Adobe's 'Live Transparency') you would think the on-screen presentation in the newest Acrobat 7 would finally kick ass.
Nope. Just like 6. It isn't great at all when it comes to smoothing, which I might add, I consider necessary for .AI files in PDFs To attain the smoothest vectors when a user Zooms in.
1. End user should not need to change anything in Acrobat.
2. No combination of smooth Text / Line art (off) / Images is going to work for every page, in every situation.
3. End user should not need to change anything in Acrobat.
I have read the .pdf guide on transparency flattening published by Adobe... and you all should too.. .it's a short and informative read.
1 Mb +
or on my site:
This is also a good read on the Transparency Flattener Plugin in AI10 and now previewer in 11 (which is nearly the same as INDD):
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In order to appreciate the strangeness of this problem...the concepts in the above documents are useful.
If you notice in my example file:
the text boxes (which .pdf generates to compress by line, I believe, and maintain kerning)
are what are being antialiased by the 'Smooth Line Art' Setting of Acrobat. (screenshot taken in Acrobat 7.0pro)
That's obviously ridiculous... and chosen as the worst (best) case for example... No visual designer needs to care HOW the .pdf format compresses or tags text until it suddenly becomes visible on screen. Preposterous! Of course you can see smoothing going on all over the place:
1. Around
the frame of raster images with drop shadows. [A transparency effect, of course]
2. Inside
transparent areas of .AI files
3. Around text boxes generated by .pdf. [Normally
transparent]
So, TRANSPARENT Objects are the problem right? Right ! Because, apparently the 'Smooth Line Art' routine is sometimes applied to all vectors contained in the file, text boxes, frames, you name it!
So, where does that leave us? Beats me... that's why I posted.
P.S. Those of you with INDD CS should use the transparency flattener preview and tweak the Transparency Flattener Styles to see if some headway can be made. I'll bet that Outlined text (AI) isn't going to antialias (fail) b/c the containing box is removed by doing so... but the Frames themselves? Crappy.
Peace be to all and may we slay this dragon soon... my hiring depends on it.
I'll post with updates. And congratulations to anyone who bore my rant this far.
Sef.
It is alright to decorate construction, but never construct decoration. - Pugin, on Arch.
