Losing art

[dreimer]

So I have a template that worked great in Fusion Pro 10. I have upgraded to 12 and now I am having problems. After composing the job (which has a possible 185 JPEG images pulled in based on data) the PDF looks great. I will then run it through either of our color management systems Alwan or GMG and all images, text, and barcodes composed through Fusion Pro are gone, all that is left is the base art. This was not happening with Fusion Pro 10. Only started with Fusion Pro 12. So I tested further and placed my composed PDF into InDesign and exported with my normal settings. Then ran that through either of the color management systems and it looks great.

Does Fusion Pro 12 have some sort of different output settings behind the scenes I can't change? I have tried with optimize (compress) PDF on the 2 different settings and also off and that changes nothing.

I uploaded the template but it isn't collecting the images?

I also uploaded the images for record 1.

Anyone have any insight?

[Dan Korn]

So you're saying that the PDF output looks fine in Acrobat, and in InDesign, but that some other third-party tool doesn't handle it properly? I know this sounds like passing the buck, but if it's right in Acrobat, then it's a problem in the third-party tool, not in FusionPro.

Adobe, and in particular their tool Acrobat, is pretty much the "gold standard" in terms of arbitrating whether a PDF is correct and what it looks like. In addition to rendering properly in Acrobat, we have tons of evidence that our PDF output renders correctly with all industry-leading RIPs and screen readers. So your other tools are definitely in the minority.

There may be some subtlety about the structure of the PDF, or color management, or something else that the tool is particularly sensitive to, but that's impossible for me to analyze (even if I had your output). Either way, if Acrobat handles it, the thrid-party tool should too.

As for what changed between FP 10 and FP 12, well, quite a bit, including the version of the Adobe PDF Library it uses (specifically, PDFL version 9 in FP 10 and PDFL 15 in FP 11 and 12.). So it might just be that the third-party tool needs an update to handle newer versions of PDF.

At any rate, you'll need to contact the other vendor(s) to find out why their tool doesn't properly handle the PDF.

[sschardan]

This might be a reach, but try exporting with different compression settings in the Output tab of the composer. There is now an Advanced compression that has given me some bad output with images. It turned subtle variations in a background of an image to blocky chunks, even dropping some portions to white. When I switched to basic or no compression, the problems went away.

[dreimer]

I feel like I did somewhat eliminate the 3rd party softwares being the issue.

Originally Posted by dreimer

So I tested further and placed my composed PDF into InDesign and exported with my normal settings. Then ran that through either of the color management systems and it looks great.

The composed PDF going straight into the 3rd party color management softwares loses the art during its processing but if that same composed PDF is placed in InDesign first and exported using Acrobat 8/9 (PDF 1.7) setting which look to be the highest compatibility option in InDesign the 3rd party software processes the file and nothing is lost.

The only thing that has changed in the process is the version of Fusion Pro being used.

[Dan Korn]

Originally Posted by dreimer

The composed PDF going straight into the 3rd party color management softwares loses the art during its processing but if that same composed PDF is placed in InDesign first and exported using Acrobat 8/9 (PDF 1.7) setting which look to be the highest compatibility option in InDesign the 3rd party software processes the file and nothing is lost.

That doesn't eliminate the third-party software as having a bug which prevents it from processing the output PDF. It just means that it doesn't have a problem with every PDF.

Originally Posted by dreimer

The only thing that has changed in the process is the version of Fusion Pro being used.

Yes, I understand, and like I said, it does use an entirely different version of the Adobe PDF Library. Clearly something different in the output PDF composed by FusionPro 12 versus the one composed by FP 10 is triggering something in the third-party utility that prevents it from processing it properly. But that doesn't mean that the PDF is invalid. Again, if Acrobat can process it, it's valid by definition, or at least there's no higher authority.

At any rate, I'm not sure what I, or anyone else on this forum, can do. I have no insight into the third-party utility or how it works to have any idea why it has trouble with certain PDFs. The only people who can do that are the folks who work on that utility. (My best guess is that they need to update their utility to handle newer versions of PDF from newer versions of the PDF Library, or perhaps they already have an update that you need to install.)

My recommendation is still to contact the vendor of that utility. If they point to something specific in the PDF that's causing their app trouble, then we might be able to work with them, and possibly even with Adobe, to figure out how to make our PDF output conformant with their tool. (Or maybe we'll figure out what settings you need to tweak in FusionPro.) But I'm sorry to say that there's nothing we at PTI can do on our own.

[dreimer]

Looking at the properties of the two PDFs one from Fusion Pro 10 and one from Fusion Pro 12, they are both using Adobe PDF Library 15 and PDF version 1.5. So that doesn't seem to be the issue? I took screenshots of the document properties. The one from Fusion Pro 12 has (DEBUG) included in the Application?

[Dan Korn]

Originally Posted by dreimer

Looking at the properties of the two PDFs one from Fusion Pro 10 and one from Fusion Pro 12, they are both using Adobe PDF Library 15 and PDF version 1.5.

Sorry, the change to PDFL 15 was made between FusionPro versions 10.0 and 10.1. (You just said "FusionPro 10," so I assumed 10.0.)

Originally Posted by dreimer

So that doesn't seem to be the issue?

Okay, so there have been point updates to the version of PDFL, even though the major version has been at 15 for a while. Anyway, whether the issue is related to the version of PDFL, or something else in FusionPro, is impossible for me to determine, without knowing exactly what about the PDF the third-party utility is objecting to.

Originally Posted by dreimer

I took screenshots of the document properties. The one from Fusion Pro 12 has (DEBUG) included in the Application?

Thanks for pointing that out. It shouldn't say that. I'll have to investigate why that's happening. Still, that's just a string in the doc info, which shouldn't affect rendering. If you go to "About FusionPro" in the FusionPro app, it doesn't say Debug there, does it?

[dreimer]

It does not say that in the application itself.

Would it do me any good to reach out to PTI support directly?

[MartyrSyx]

Originally Posted by dreimer

Would it do me any good to reach out to PTI support directly?

I suggest you contact the support for "...color management systems Alwan or GMG..." as Dan suggested. Only they can tell you why it is not working through their software. If it displays fine in Acrobat, it would tend to be the other software that is having some kind of issue with the pdf.

[Dan Korn]

Originally Posted by dreimer

It does not say that in the application itself.

Thanks. I'm still looking into why it says "Debug" in the Application metadata. But that won't affect rendering.

Originally Posted by dreimer

Would it do me any good to reach out to PTI support directly?

I would almost never discourage anyone from contacting our excellent Support department. In this case, though, it would just get escalated back to me, or my boss, which is pretty much the top of the FusionPro food chain, so there's nobody else on our end who would be able to give you a different answer. I continue to recommend that you contact Support for those third-party vendors.