InDesign frame borders showing in PDF

[Kriszti]

Hello,

I recently started working with InDesign CS2 and haven't had a problem until now. I have a document with transparent images on top of a large background image. My problem is that when I generate a high-res (PDF/X-1a2001), I see the borders of my InDesign frames as slight gray lines in Adobe Acrobat. They change, come, go slightly with changing the zoom in Acrobat but never go away completely. I sent this pdf to a magazine and they saw the lines (I assume in Acrobat), but when they laid it out for print, it looked fine.
An screenshot of my problem may be viewed here:

http://www.goodpointweb.com/test/indesign_error.jpg

Anyway, what could cause the frame borders to show up in
Acrobat? I should also add that no gray lines appear when I create a low-res PDF.

Thanks,
Kriszti

 

[Ekwoman]

Those are most likely "stitching" lines that occur with transparency. When you flatten the transparency (which happens when you create PDF-x files for example) the flattener has to break the images up into regions (atomic regions where it decides how to create the illusion of transparency). What you're seeing on the PDF is the separation between the regions. Acrobat is displaying them but they do not print.

There is a setting in Acrobat so that you don't see that, and it escapes me right now...it might be the view resolution or overprint preview maybe. Anyone know Acrobat to help out with that?

 

[Kriszti]

Thank you for your help!

I should also add that the lines appear around the text frames as well, those that don't contain any transparent images or don't even touch any.

-Kriszti

 

[apepp]

...acrobat smoothing...

...acrobat preferences has the option to smooth images, text and line art...

...turn smooth images and line art off in the preferences under 'page display' in acrobat, things will look jaggy but the stitching will likely disappear...

Andrew

 

[apepp]

...this is the nature of flattening in pdf 1.3...

....pdf 1.4 (acrobat 5) and higher don't flatten transparency, however a postcript rip is required that supports these formats so that the flattening occurs in rip...

...keep all text and vector work above (on new layers) objects that have transparency so they don't get converted to raster pixels...

Andrew

 

[jmgalvin]

YOu might try looking at the pdf esport settings. In the general window see if Compatible with Acrobat 4 helps (that flattens). In advanced see if High is selected in transparency flattener. Those SHOULD be the default settings in 1A but I don't know about your reference to 2001.

For what it's worth, I always use those and have never had a problem.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4