The text in my PDF is not showing up on some tablets/mobile devices

[samsonl89442911]

I created a document using InDesign CC 2017 using Mac Sierra. I exported the document as a PDF. I can view the PDF without any problems on my desktop, but many of the recipients are having trouble viewing the PDF on mobile devices or tablets. When they open the PDF, the text and images are gone. They only see my footer and a single shape, like this:

One of the recipients of the PDF, sent me this message:

"On my laptop (OS: Mac Sierra), I'm able to read the attachment just fine.  On my phone (Android 6.0.1, aka: Marshmallow), I can download the attachment just fine.  On my main tablet (Android 5.1.1, aka: Lollipop), I had the issue some of your testers were having (which is when I began to suspect this was a software issue).  On my tablet, I uploaded the attachment to both clouds that I use (Dropbox and Google Drive) even though I couldn't read the attachment.  When I downloaded the attachment from each cloud, I could read them just fine."

Can anyone help me to fix this problem? Thank you!

[Anasuiya Gupta]

Hi

What reader are you using on the mobile devices? Is it Adobe Acrobat or some web browser to open the PDFs generated? If possible, please ask your recipients to use Adobe Acrobat on their mobile devices and see if the PDF renders properly or not.

Regards

Anasuiya Gupta

[samsonl89442911]

They are having trouble with the Adobe Acrobat reader app.

[Geоrge]

Can you give a sample PDF-page with this bug here?

without it, it is a guesswork

[samsonl89442911]

I don't mean to sound dense, but how do I upload a PDF to this forum. I can't seem to find the option to do so. Thanks for being patient with me!

[Steve Werner]

There is no way to upload a PDF to this forum. Put the PDF on a service like Dropbox, Box, etc. then provide a link to the PDF.

[samsonl89442911]

Here is a link to the PDF:

Dropbox - Example page.pdf

[jane-e]

I had the same results. I can see it on my Mac, not on my iPad with Adobe Reader.

Try changing the font. Does that work?

[samsonl89442911]

It was indeed the font. I had to change every last bit of the font in order to make the file viewable. Thank you for your help! Thank you to everyone!

[Jongware]

That dark green bar is way off from the color specified in the PDF – in Adobe Reader and in Mac's Preview, the CMYK value "0 0 73 22" displays, rather correctly, as a slightly dirty yellow.

Could it be the iPad's Reader cannot handle the CMYK colorspace correctly? Try exporting your document as RGB and check again.

(The reason I suspect this is the problem and not the text, is because the fonts all check out. In the PDF, I find that the text at the bottom gets drawn first, and indeed it appears normally. After that, the yellow bar ought to be drawn, which appears here as green, and only after that the rest of the text and the two photos are drawn.)

((Quite ironically, as I have a rather old iPad, I don't use Adobe Reader. And the file displays just fine in my old iBooks, with the correct tint of yellow ... Here is a screenshot.))

[jane-e]

I opened it in Illustrator as well because I couldn't find anything in the Object Inspector in Acrobat.

I got an alert saying it was going to Outline some fonts, and it outlined the ones that disappeared in Reader.

I got an alert saying that both RGB and CMYK were being used, and which did I want. I picked CMYK.

I closed without saving.

By the way, I can view it in Dropbox on the iPad, just not in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

[Jongware]

Right. I would guess that your DropBox app is using the same HTML/PDF renderer as Safari on the iPad. I get a correct preview in Safari as well.

For their own Reader App, Adobe must be using their own code. And it cannot handle this otherwise perfectly normal file.

[Laubender]

Hi Jongware,

I get different results with HTML/PDF rendering in Dropbox with different desktop browsers like Safari and Firefox on OSX 10.10.5.

As long as Dropbox is loading the rendering of the text is done.
However it's not as good as the rendering with Adobe Reader or Acrobat.

The screenshots are taken from a movie with the Quick Time Player of my Mac OSX.

But after the progress bar has finished the text will vanish:

I also see some quirks with Firefox' own PDF renderer if I open the PDF from my harddisk in the browser:

Regards,
Uwe

[Jongware]

Ah, very good. Yes, that seems to indicate the font indeed is the problem (and that overly green bar is just a shoddy implementation of a CMYK-to-RGB conversion ).

I'll rip out the font and see if I can find anything unusual. It's a TrueType and I know more about Type 1, but maybe I'll learn something new.

[rob day]

But after the progress bar has finished the text will vanish:

Dropbox does seem to add another variable to the rendering. The flattened sRGB example I posted in Dropbox renders the headline as bold (again after the Dropbox progress bar completes). If I load the same PDF directly from my server in Chrome the headline renders at the correct weight in my server version:

http://www.zenodesign.com/forum/Example-sRGB.pdf

Here's Chrome (the bolding still happens in Firefox)

[rob day]

Try exporting with this setup

Here's an example which works for me in Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Preview and Acrobat.

Dropbox - Example-sRGB.pdf

[Laubender]

Hi Rob,

well done!

Now that is working for all my browsers on OSX and the view of the PDF of your Dropbox link is perfect as well.

No problems with Apple's Preview app on OSX.

Also tested this on my machine by placing the PDF on a page and exported to PDF with a pdf export preset similar to yours.

I also noticed that you were using Simulate Overprint. Good hint…

Hope, this would work also for PDF viewers on all mobile devices.

Thanks,
Uwe

[rob day]

Hope, this would work also for PDF viewers on all mobile devices.

It should. Awhile back I realized my clients were starting to look at my PDF sketches on tablets, and any transparency or CMYK color was being was being altered enough to create miscommunications even when it was understood that it was only a sketch. I have yet to see a problem with flattened sRGB.

[samsonl89442911]

Thank you so much for your help. I am not very software savvy, so please excuse me. When I try to export the file from inDesign as a PDF, I don't have the option for "Comp sRGB (modified)." Here is what I have in this dropdown menu:

What am I missing? Thank you so much for your help. Thank you to everyone for helping me riddle this out.

[rob day]

The preset showing in my capture is a preset I saved via Save preset in the lower right corner.

Set the Output tab's settings to match what I'm showing in my #13, and then if you want you can save the settings as a preset that you can load later.

[samsonl89442911]

Thanks. I understand that I should be on the Output tab, but once I'm there, I don't have the option to choose "Comp sRGB (modified)" in the dropdown menu (see my image capture in post 17). I only have the Adobe PDF presets shown. How can I add "Comp sRGB" to this menu?

[jane-e]

Don't worry about the name of the preset "Comp sRGB" specifically. You can name your own saved presets anything at all that you want. Just match all of the other settings.

Then, optionally, click "Save Preset" in the lower left. Type in "Comp sRBG" or something else that makes sense to you and then it will appear in your list.

Also! "Modified" means it is not using the preset. It means a setting was changed. So don't try to make it say "modified" either.

[rob day]

Setup the Output dialog and then click Save Preset. You can give it any name.

[samsonl89442911]

Thank you for explaining! I created a new PDF using the following presets:

Unfortunately, I am still having the same problem on mobile devices. Here is a link to the newly created PDF:

Dropbox - Example Page format test.pdf

Have I missed something?

[rob day]

Looks like it has something to do with the Dropbox interface. I downloaded your PDF and it works in all of my readers and browsers. Here it is from my server:

http://www.zenodesign.com/forum/ExamplePageformattest.pdf