Gradients dropping out when opening PDFs in Illustrator that were exported from INDD
philter2001 Sep 30, 2013 5:58 PMHi everyone. I work for a large format printing company. We receive thousands of files every year from many different designers. We started to notice that gradients would drop out of some PDFs when opening them in Illustrator but they would preview fine when opened in Acrobat. I searched high and low for an explanation for this glitch. The only response I received is "Stop opening exported PDFs in Illustrator." This is an unsatisfactory answer for someone that needs to preflight directly in the Illustrator program. I've done a ton of research and have been racking my brain for the last 2 years and have finally found sufficient workarounds for this issue. The downfall with these workarounds: all spot colors located in the gradients will convert to CMYK mixes. I'm still researching to see if there is a way to keep spot colors intact in these areas.
A little back story: InDesign is converting the gradients into something called NChannel. It enables more accurate handling of color blending by including additional dot gain and color mixing info. Both InDesign and Acrobat have the ability to display these elements whereas Illustrator, from what I’m finding, does not. Which is why we’re seeing gradient elements drop out when opened in Illustrator.
Workaround for CMYK Gradients
Open PDF exported from INDD in Acrobat
Go to Tools > Print Production > Convert Colors
Object Type: Smooth Shade (this tells Acrobat to hone in on Gradients only)
Color Type: DeviceCMYK
Check Embed next to Conversion Profile (should be SWOP)
Expand Document Colors on the right and Select DeviceCMYK in Color Spaces then click ok
Save the PDF
Workaround for 1 Spot Color in Gradients (Converts Spot Color located in Gradient to CMYK – all other Spots stay intact)
Open PDF exported from INDD in Acrobat
Go to Tools > Print Production > Convert Colors
Object Type: Smooth Shade (this tells Acrobat to hone in on Gradients only)
Color Type: Spot Color
Check Embed next to Conversion Profile (should be SWOP)
Expand Document Colors on the right and Select the Spot that is located in the Gradient in Color Spaces then click ok
Save the PDF
Workaround for 2 Spot Colors in Gradients (Converts Spot Colors located in Gradient toCMYK – all other Spots stay intact)
Open PDF exported from INDD in Acrobat
Go to Tools > Print Production > Convert Colors
Object Type: Smooth Shade (this tells Acrobat to hone in on Gradients only)
Color Type: Spot Color
Check Embed next to Conversion Profile (should be SWOP)
Expand Document Colors on the right and Select the DeviceN spot color that is located in the Gradient in Color Spaces then click ok
Save the PDF
Please test it and let me know if you run into any issues with these workarounds. I'm always looking for new problems to solve!
- Jenny





