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TejadaCapellan Calculating status...

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Illustrator CS5 rendering Bug?

May 2, 2012 11:01 AM

Tags: #clipping_path_issues

Hi All,

This is my first post in this forum.

Recently I found this shared PDF rendering bug

by both Adobe products: Illustrator CS5 and

Adobe Reader X.

Look at the attached images.

Although these screenshots are from

Adobe Reader X and Nitro PDF Reader,

these shows exactly the rendering differences

between Illustrator Cs5 and Cs4.

The same PDF file opened fine in Illustrator CS4

and 8 different PDF viewers. It does not shows

these square clipping boxes around the words

"La Tormenta".

Why Adobe changed the way its products interpret

pdf files?

If you want, you could download the pdf file:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3834621/La_Tormenta_for_PDF_export.pdf

(77k)

Thanks in advance!

Alejandro

2060 Views 21 Replies Latest reply: [scott w], May 2, 2012 4:59 PM

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1. Kurt Gold,

May 2, 2012 11:05 AM in reply to TejadaCapellan

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Can you also provide the original .ai file?

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2. TejadaCapellan,

May 2, 2012 11:33 AM in reply to Kurt Gold

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Hi Kurt,

Only the exported PDF file is available.
The original file was created in Xara.

Did you know why this PDF renders
differently only in newer versions of
Adobe Products?

Thanks in advance!

Alejandro

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3. emil emil,

May 2, 2012 11:42 AM in reply to TejadaCapellan

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It is not clear from all you said, what does Illustrator have to do with your problem. You provided a PDF file that opens in CS5 exactly as you showed it on the image in your post. Are you saying that this PDF file will open differently in CS4?

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4. TejadaCapellan,

May 2, 2012 11:58 AM in reply to emil emil

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Hi emil,

emil wrote:
> what does Illustrator have to do with your problem
> [snip]
> Are you saying that this PDF file will open differently in CS4?

Yes. This PDF file prints (and previews on the screen)
differently from Cs4 and Cs5.

Alejandro

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5. emil emil,

May 2, 2012 12:34 PM in reply to TejadaCapellan

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I don't have Illustrator CS4 around me to test it but in CS5 I just selected all Ctrl+A and removed all clipping masks with Ctrl+Alt+7. These clipping masks don't do anything anyway but just clip the edges if the letters. Then I saved as .ai and also as PDF with and without Preserve Illustrator Editing and then opened again all files without any problems. Hopefully someone here has access to CS4 and will open your pdf to see if these clipping masks problem is there.

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6. TejadaCapellan,

May 2, 2012 12:49 PM in reply to emil emil

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Hi emil,

emil wrote:
> Hopefully someone here has access to CS4 and
> will open your pdf to see if these clipping masks
> problem is there.

The clipping mask problem only appears in Illustrator
Cs5 and Adobe Reader X.

Just for curiosity. How do you know exactly which
clipping masks to delete?
Deleting all clipping mask in a design would
be a real problem in most cases.

Alejandro

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7. [scott w],

May 2, 2012 12:56 PM in reply to TejadaCapellan

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Yes, appears to be a CS5 issue. CS6 shows the same behavior as CS4.

CS4 = No masks
CS5 = Masks
CS6 = No masks

As emil emil posted, simply deleting all the masks in CS5 brings the art in line with CS4 or CS6.

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8. emil emil,

May 2, 2012 12:56 PM in reply to emil emil

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I don't want to point fingers as I have no idea where the culprit is but often these kind of problems are caused by software that doesn't follow strictly a standard like the PDF file format standard in this case, So, it is possible that the problem could be caused by the program that created the PDF file. It is not unusual programmers to save time by simply testing their code making sure it works instead of following strictly the file format standard. In such cases everything works fine until a new version of the software is created.

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9. emil emil,

May 2, 2012 1:02 PM in reply to TejadaCapellan

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Didn't see Scott's reply before I wrote my previous post, so after his report I'm inclined to believe that the problem comes from CS5 but so far limited with files created with the software that made the PDF.

TejadaCapellan wrote:

...
Just for curiosity. How do you know exactly which
clipping masks to delete?
Deleting all clipping mask in a design would
be a real problem in most cases.

Alejandro
I just tried that first and it didn't seem to cause any problems.

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10. TejadaCapellan,

May 2, 2012 1:08 PM in reply to [scott w]

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Hi Scott,

Many thanks for confirming this.
Looks like I will have to send a warning
to the printers that I work with,
about this bug in Cs5.

emil, please notice that Adobe Reader X
displays the same bug as Cs5.

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11. emil emil,

May 2, 2012 1:26 PM in reply to TejadaCapellan

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I wonder what will happen if the PDF file is re-saved from CS4 or 6 as PDF and then tested again in CS5. Or even better save as .AI and then as PDF

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12. [scott w],

May 2, 2012 1:36 PM in reply to emil emil

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emil emil wrote:

I wonder what will happen if the PDF file is re-saved from CS4 or 6 as PDF and then tested again in CS5. Or even better save as .AI and then as PDF

Opened in CS6, Save as PDF (Illustrator Defaults), open in CS5 = no masks.

So you're correct. CS5 is reading some aspect fo the PDF which the other AI version are not. And upon a resave that erronious data seems to be corrected.

Note: Open PDF in Acrobat Pro X (10.1.3) save as PDF, open in CS5 = Masks still present. So Resaving via Acrobat Pro X is of no help.

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13. TejadaCapellan,

May 2, 2012 1:48 PM in reply to emil emil

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Hi emil,

emil wrote:
>I wonder what will happen if the PDF file is re-saved from CS4 or 6
>as PDF and then tested again in CS5.
>Or even better save as .AI and then as PDF

That would be really interesting.
If no mask appears in Cs5, after resaving
in Cs4 or Cs6, then the PDF parsing code
in Adobe Reader X and Illustrator Cs5
is looking some specific tags inside the
PDF and when it does not find them,
it changes the way to renders the pdf...

Just my educated guess...

Alejandro

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14. TejadaCapellan,

May 2, 2012 1:53 PM in reply to [scott w]

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Hi Scott,

Now, I see your reply, after
posting a comment to emil.

Many thanks for testing this.
So, the difference is maybe
one or many tags and possibly
the structure of the file...

Could you post the resaved PDF
file to compare?

Alejandro

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15. [scott w],

May 2, 2012 2:07 PM in reply to TejadaCapellan

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Sure:

http://www11.zippyshare.com/v/69123857/file.html

Resaved via CS6 as Illustrator Defaults. Seems the primary difference is the new PDF has a clipping mask around the entire artboard. That can easily be deleted though.

http://www65.zippyshare.com/v/32189367/file.html

Resaved from CS4 as Illustrator Defaults... no masks anywhere.

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16. TejadaCapellan,

May 2, 2012 3:20 PM in reply to [scott w]

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Hi Scott,

These resaved PDF files are really useful.
Many thanks!

Looks like clipping masks have become
ubiquitous after Cs4...

Alejandro

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17. [scott w],

May 2, 2012 3:28 PM in reply to TejadaCapellan

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If you look at the PDF info you can see that AICS6 and AICS4 (and CS5) use PDF 1.5 as the default format. The Xara export is using PDF 1.6. So it may be a bug in the PDF 1.6 format. Or a bug in how Xara is writing PDF1.6 as emil emil eluded to. Things may be entirely different if Xara is set to use PDF1.5 for the export.

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18. TejadaCapellan,

May 2, 2012 4:14 PM in reply to [scott w]

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Hi Scott,

Just exported the file in different PDF versions
1.3 / 1.4 / 1.5 / 1.6

Tell us which version(s) does not invoke
clipping masks in your different Illustrator's
versions:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3834621/La_Tormenta_for_PDF_export_v13.pdf

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3834621/La_Tormenta_for_PDF_export_v14.pdf

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3834621/La_Tormenta_for_PDF_export_v15.pdf

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3834621/La_Tormenta_for_PDF_export_v16.pdf

Thanks in advance!
Alejandro

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19. [scott w],

May 2, 2012 4:48 PM in reply to TejadaCapellan

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CS6 - Every file has clipping masks. Not the same masks originally, but there are masks.

CS5 - Every single file has clipping masks. Not the same original masks and not the same masks which show in CS6, but there are masks.

CS4 - no masks anywhere in any of the files.

The original PDF in the opening post of this thread was cleaner in CS6 than any of the recent PDFs.

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20. TejadaCapellan,

May 2, 2012 4:52 PM in reply to [scott w]

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Hi Scott,

Exporting PDF from Xara has too many options,
so probably I selected/deselected one or many
features that produced these results.

For now, I will alert Xara about this
possible bug and warn my printers to use
Cs4 or a previous version of Illustrator for
view and print my files.

Many thanks again, Scott and emil emil
for your time and interest to solve this
issue.

Alejandro

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21. [scott w],

May 2, 2012 4:59 PM in reply to TejadaCapellan

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GLad to help.

I'm guessing that the issue may be the gradient changes in CS5 and CS6. CS5 allows transparency on Gradient Meshes. CS6 allows gradients on strokes (with transparency as well).

It's customary to see clipping masks when AI art is back-saved to older versions or saved to older PDF formats. The gradients get rasterized and a clipping mask is created from the shape. It would appear that the Xara export is being read the same way.

Sometimes ticking the "Compatible Gradients" option when backsaving AI files will resolve the issue. If there's some preference in the Xara export regarding gradients or meshes, you may look at those settings closer (sorry I don't really know Xara at all since it's PC-only).

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