How do you explain when one line of type disappears on a plate from a client supplied pdf? We have imposed thousands of these in the past ten years or so without errors. I have seen this happen a few times in past 20 years. Suddenly i am asked to explain why this happened. I have done the usual troubleshooting, nothing amiss. Same font with numerous headings in the pdf but this one just dropped out. Was it the result of a full moon or something? :facepalm: :facepalm:
Obviously the client supplied pdf was bad. That is my story and I'm sticking to it.
When I used Prinergy, I saw this happen with PDFs that had been, "corrected" using Acrobat Tools (or edited in Acrobat via Illy or PhotoShop) and NOT via PitStop. Long story short, ALWAYS and ONLY use PitStop for PDF alteration in Acrobat. Don't use any of the Acrobat built in editing features.
I am sure you are right about that. We do quite a bit of image editing in Acrobat with the touchup tool. Over the past 20 or so years I have seen it happen before my eyes about 10 times. I've seen whole blocks of the pdf disappear after the image updates. I do an "undo", do it again and it does not happen. Very annoying. My question would be: is there any other way of editing images in a pdf without touchup? I can't imagine using the pitstop curves tool for this, although we are only on version 13 and will have to upgrade soon. I have saved many curves in photoshop for faces that are reprinted every month. If we have to carry on using the touchup tool in Acrobat then I will just have to grow a few more eyes to catch the error.
:facepalm:
One shop I worked at used Neo to edit PDFs. It was much better for accessing images to touch up than Acrobat's default tools.
I would contact the rip vendor and log a case.
I'm seeing all sorts of new font issues with Canva, Google fonts, Opentype SVG fonts etc.
Just had some with the Indigos dropping Type 3 fonts, so we have a fix for that now in PitStop.
Global Graphics also fixed it in the rip. So it's important to report them, or nothing happens!!
The rip is ok, the objects and or fonts disappear right before your eyes (if you catch it) and it's missing in the single pdf that goes into imposition.
We have also seen customers use Acrobat's Comment feature as an editing tool. :facepalm:
I'm kinda of the belief (which could be wrong) that some font designers are not as thorough as they used to be, and thus the fonts are not as robust as they once were. Almost to the point, when you get some weird unicode font, maybe just outline it.
But it is also the different OSes that are out there now. The newer OSes are supporting more unicode fonts, where as the older ones don't, and that could play into the issue. That's not even included the designing on the web, which is a whole other beast.
Great time to be in Prepress.
If the issue is caused by image editing in Acrobat, shouldn't this be addressed by Adobe? Or are there just not enough of us experiencing this to cause a change? (I know what you are going to say Joe).
Quote from: abc on November 19, 2021, 06:17:10 AM
I would contact the rip vendor and log a case.
I'm seeing all sorts of new font issues with Canva, Google fonts, Opentype SVG fonts etc.
Just had some with the Indigos dropping Type 3 fonts, so we have a fix for that now in PitStop.
Global Graphics also fixed it in the rip. So it's important to report them, or nothing happens!!
Yes, we had an issue with Google fonts as well. Same customer, I just told them never to use Google fonts and we got out of that one. This font that dropped out occurred many times on many flyers with no issue. Just one line, a small heading above a photo, dropped out.
Sorry, the error did not occur many times, just on the one line.
Google fonts seem to be in Adobe Creative Cloud now. Had a few jobs lately that used fonts and looked on Adobe and noticed they were Google fonts. How nice. An actual good thing.
Quote from: pspdfppdfxhd on November 19, 2021, 06:42:34 AM
The rip is ok, the objects and or fonts disappear right before your eyes (if you catch it) and it's missing in the single pdf that goes into imposition.
OK now that is different than what I thought you meant which was the type was still in the PDF but the RIP dropped it.
Early on in the game when the Edit object tool was new there was a lot of times you would get unexpected results when saving back into the PDF. I don't see that anymore.
Also there is nothing wrong with the Pitstop Curve tool. I love it and use it often. The one thing it will do sometimes is if you do a curve and forget to hit the apply button it will sometimes crash Acrobat when you try to move to do something else.
One of the deadliest things in Prepress is letting that Magic Mouse get away from you and it has happened to me more than once of it deleting something or moving something with a wayward swipe and drag. Also related to the Magic Mouse is getting in a hurry to "Edit Image" with the select object tool and when you right click and try to move down to "Edit Image" just a small wayward click on the "Delete Clip" menu choice can get you too. Been there...done that.
Quote from: pspdfppdfxhd on November 19, 2021, 06:56:48 AM
If the issue is caused by image editing in Acrobat, shouldn't this be addressed by Adobe? Or are there just not enough of us experiencing this to cause a change? (I know what you are going to say Joe).
You should do this. I had success getting them to bring back the SHIFT+Click to select multiple objects with Pitstop. It was such a pleasant experience I would highly recommend you venture down this path. :sarcasm:
I've seen whole chunks of a pdf disappear when the moment comes when the picture updates. That's why I am really thinking that's the problem. And for years we've had the "update picture after editing - ACROBAT CRASH" scenario which has never gone away so maybe it's some "ghost" in the system.
Hail to Joe but please don't get smug in your final 44 days. (or so). ;D
Don't worry...when I retire all of these vendors will fix all of their issues and you'll never see another problem.
:gom:
There are a few things you can try. Flatten annotations, checking for missing glyphs etc.
If you have a copy of the PDF still you can send it to me.
In my last week now at Enfocus, so I have a little time on my hands!
Thanks abc, not sure if you would find anything though. I have tried to recreate the problem but it doesn't happen. Maybe I should optimize each pdf to clean them up right from the beginning? I couldn't send you it now, i am gone for the weekend. :drunk3:p
This client sends these pdfs to customers so maybe there are some annotations going on in there somewhere. But what exactly is an annotation and how would i know if the pdf contains them? I know that saving as an optimized pdf can flush em out though.
But wouldn't the annotations be visible?
Quote from: pspdfppdfxhd on November 19, 2021, 04:55:03 AM
I am sure you are right about that. We do quite a bit of image editing in Acrobat with the touchup tool. Over the past 20 or so years I have seen it happen before my eyes about 10 times. I've seen whole blocks of the pdf disappear after the image updates. I do an "undo", do it again and it does not happen. Very annoying. My question would be: is there any other way of editing images in a pdf without touchup? I can't imagine using the pitstop curves tool for this, although we are only on version 13 and will have to upgrade soon. I have saved many curves in photoshop for faces that are reprinted every month. If we have to carry on using the touchup tool in Acrobat then I will just have to grow a few more eyes to catch the error.
:facepalm:
IIRC, you can correct the curves in Photoshop on the image, and save it to your work folder. Then use PitStop to relink the image and replace the old one. There are usually layering and masking issues, but even a novice with PitStop should be able to figure this out and correct it.
Strange thing that occurred to me... another operator had opened this pdf and there was a red line going through that line of type that popped out. I thought he had used a markup tool to highlight it (he had no idea what he was looking at). Could these pdfs have markups created on their pdfs coming from pcs that i can't see on my mac that are affecting the output?
You can turn markups on or off in preferences
So I am in here on a Sunday, working on the job for the client that we need extensive image editing work. (the one where the type dropped out).
The IT guy must have set the backup to go on Sunday morning so the network speed was terrible.
I copy the folder that I am working on to the desktop of my Mac. So, I edited 9 forms of pdfs, each containing 5 pages 4/4. Now, in the last 7 years or so there has not been a time when editing these pdfs that did not result in at least 2 crashes of Acrobat per form. (9 x 2 = approximately 18 crashes). I did not get ONE crash. The edited photos updated perfectly. This was the point when at times I saw blocks of things disappear when the photo updated. I suspect this is what happened when the type dropped out.
Could working over the network cause such strange events? I don't want to get too excited but it seems that the network was the issue....Make any sense?
Disruptions in your network connection while working on files could do some very not nice things. Have your network person check everything to do with the network.
I will quote you when my trial comes up. My lawyer will be very happy to see some evidence.
Seems weird to me to work on the network, I am very diligent with my files
so I put my files on the desktop when working and put them back on the server.
Not sure but I think some places might require working on the network?
I work on the server except for fonts, I make a local copy for those... except rare occasions where I'm having weird behavior with a file, then I work locally and copy it back to the server but that is pretty rare.
always working off the server, been that way for years.
I work exclusively off the server (except on HUGE files) for a multitude of reasons:
The server is archived/backed up so it needs to be the most recent set of files.
In the event that there are multiple prepress employees, everyone has access to make changes.
If you have a set of files on the server and a set of files on the workstation, how do you, or another employee, know which set is most current without research?
When you link images, links are broken when you change locations of files.
Your RIP usually requires a central location to refer back to data, and the server is the best place since it's always on and rarely restarted.
In the event the file is HUGE and running slow off the server, I copy the file to the desktop, work it, and copy it back and delete from the desktop when done editing. Failure to do this causes issue.
[edit] Based on my history and attitude, I work every file as if it is my last, because it might be. I assume that I could die at any given moment (or quit) and the next poor sap needs a clear path.
Always work off of the server too. I like living dangerously.
(https://www.kindpng.com/picc/m/74-746007_pistol-clipart-james-bond-james-bond-emoji-hd.png)
I'm like Tracy. Copy from server, work on files, and copy back up. Used to be slow to copy, but no more. It's only come back to bite once or twice in the many years because someone didn't follow SOP. ID10T(s).
Quote from: scottrsimons on November 22, 2021, 12:53:53 PM
I'm like Tracy. Copy from server, work on files, and copy back up. Used to be slow to copy, but no more. It's only come back to bite once or twice in the many years because someone didn't follow SOP. ID10T(s).
You get id10t errors too? When I worked there were also pebkac errors with certain co-workers (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair).
:rotf: Seems like a carbon-based interface malfunction issue to me.