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Text Coloring Problem


heatherw

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THE SITUATION:

I am creating some templates that use a lot of variable color options. These colors are sometimes used to change the color of phrases or titles in the text of the document. To do this, I created two rules:

 

//startCalloutColor rule (tagged text)

return '<color name="'+Field("Callout Color")+'">';

 

//endCalloutColor rule (tagged text)

return '<color name="Black">'; // also tried this using return '</color>';

 

Here are some examples of how these are used:

 

//For a title callout

<<startCalloutColor>>Some title or single line paragraph!

<<endCalloutColor>>Some regular text to go with the title

 

//For in-text callouts

Some paragraph that is already black using a black color tag, then <<startCalloutColor>>some callout text<<endCalloutColor>>, and finally more text after.

 

THE PROBLEM:

Whenever I change the color of a font to something other than black, the text immediately following the colored text is a darker, bolder looking text until it wraps to the next line at which it returns to normal. This phenomenon becomes particularly apparent in composed documents. When I opened the composed PDF in Illustrator to check the colors it turned out that any text on the same line or the line immediately following a colored text segment was using a different color black:

 

//Color of regular text (and the correct color as defined in the template)

R:0 G:0 B:0

C:0% M:0% Y:0% K:100%

 

//Color of text after a colored segment even

//though I am changing it back to black

R:0 G:0 B:0

C:75% M:68% Y:67% K:90%

 

Thus, when looking at the composed PDFs the first line after a colored segment until the line wraps looks bolder than the rest of the paragraph and other text on the page. The font is not actually being bolded but it is incredibly obvious to the eye that it is not the same.

 

I could really use some help with this. I am using FP 7.1 Desktop right now (we have some 7.2 servers but most of our customers are still using 7.1 so I may not be able to upgrade).

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Ok, so I have the files but I cannot upload them. When I tried to attach them, I got the following error "Your submission could not be processed because a security token was missing."

Hmm, probably the attachment is too large. Can you reduce the size of the data file, or remove any resources included with the job? Those shouldn't matter for reproducing this issue. Or you can send the job to FusionProSupport@PTI.com. Or post it to a file-sharing site such as dropbox.com and include the link here.

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Two possible workarounds for this, turn off "Use RGB Color Space" in your Composition Settings/Output, or change your black to 99.99%.

 

We have to use RGB or we end up with neon colors because of the conversion FusionPro does. As for changing my black, do you mean that I should try changing actual definition of the color in FusionPro->Advanced->Colors ... ?

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Just tried changing the black to use the same color ratios as I was seeing in Illustrator but still having the issue. I went into FusionPro->Advanced->Colors... "Black" was defined as:

C:0%

M:0%

Y:0%

K:0%

 

and I edited it to use the ratios I saw in Illustrator so that is reads:

C:75%

M:68%

Y:67%

K:90%

 

Strangely, I saw absolutely no change in the composed documents. They still had the color values that I listed in my first post.

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One more added bit of information, in Illustrator I can open the document as either CMYK or RGB. Usually it reads what the document is using and goes with that but my composed documents are using both apparently. So I always have to choose one to open with. If I open using RGB (which is what I set in the Composition settings) I get the values listed in my first post. If I open the document using CMYK, I get the same CMYK values but also get #010101 for the RGB value.

 

For a visual of the color disparity, the first line of the black paragraph, notice how it is significantly blacker than the rest below it:

http://forums.pti.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=531&stc=1&d=1320084577

 

Supposedly, those are using the same color tag so they should not be showing up differently.

FirstLineDark.png.09a03c7b71bb8e4ebb275c447a40a91b.png

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I think this is due to your use of RGB resources which is causing a conflict in how FP reproduces color builds. If I recreate your PDF graphic in Illustrator with a CMYK colorspace and convert your white JPEG to grayscale, the output from FP looks fine.

 

I've attached my revised resources for you to test out on your end. Note that I created your "white mask" in Illustrator which may require some tweaking to "fix" the bottom, right corner.

revised_art.zip

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It's darker because the top line is more dense in color, ie RGB 0 vs the rest which are grayscale. Since you are using a composite workflow you might just set Black in FusionPro/Advanced/Colors as a spot color with Black=100 as the value.

 

I already tried that and it had no effect.

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I think this is due to your use of RGB resources which is causing a conflict in how FP reproduces color builds. If I recreate your PDF graphic in Illustrator with a CMYK colorspace and convert your white JPEG to grayscale, the output from FP looks fine.

 

I'll try this out today and post the results (whether it works or not).

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For some reason, it did not work for me before but now it does. :confused:

 

Anyway, I tried what ThomasLewis recommended with the changes suggested by esmith and the text now looks uniform. HOWEVER, now ALL the black text is non-standard black. Instead of making the darker first paragraph line true black, it made all the text a dark gray.

 

When I opened in Illustrator ThomasLewis's file and my composed files after the changes none of the text that looked black actually used true black. Here are the values I saw:

 

When opening the file in Illustrator as an RGB document I got

R: 35 G:31 B:32 and C:70% M:68% Y:64% K:74%

 

When opening the file in Illustrator as a CMYK document I got

R: 35 G:31 B:32 and C:0% M:0% Y:0% K:100%

 

The font should be actual black, not make all the font a non-black color to match the messed up first line. The color profile should be

R:0 G:0 B:0 and C:0% M:0% Y:0% K:100% For whatever reason, I cannot get pure black even though that is the black that is set in my FusionPro color palette.

 

Spot color works in this case to match all the black text but I am confused about why I all of a sudden need to have it on all the time. I have made many templates before now with similar layouts and have not had to use spot color to make the text all uniform before. In fact, I don't actually know what it is for.

 

Also of note, if you look at any of these documents in Adobe Acrobat to get the color values, it tends to be very inaccurate. I always have to open it in Illustrator or Photoshop to get the values that are actually visible.

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Adjusting the graphics made a tiny bit of impact on the real documents but the font was still off. Making the black a spot color worked, but like I said above, it makes ALL the text a dark gray when we want a true black. Not to mention, spot color is only meant to be used in special situations I thought. What is spot color, and how can I get the black to actually be black and not dark gray?
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