iWork Pages not generating drop shadows in PDFs

**TangentIdea** · March 30th, 2005, 03:12 PM

I just finished a yearbook job using Pages for the first time. Loved it -- a huge improvement over AppleWorks.

We just got the proof back from the printer today, and for the most part, things were fine. However, all of the drop shadows on the text and images were missing. Before I burned the CD, I opened the PDF of the file in Preview, just to make sure everything looked right, and it appeared exactly as it had in Pages. Now, when the print shop opened the file and showed it to me in Acrobat, sure enough, no shadows. So, when I got home, I opened the PDF in Acrobat, and sure enough, no shadows. They still show up in Preview though, so what gives?

The yearbook does look good enough without the shadows -- it's not bad enough that I'm going to redo it. However, it would be nice to know in the future how to fix that.

**RGrphc2** · March 30th, 2005, 09:13 PM

yea, it is a glich in Pages when you export to PDF don't know why it does that i was hoping the update would fix it but it didn't, maybe if you exported it as something else like an EPS and put it in Quark or InDesign...

**ElDiabloConCaca** · March 30th, 2005, 10:02 PM

The current workaround requires that you have Acrobat Professional (with Distiller): simply print to the Adobe PDF printer instead of using "Export." The resulting file will be a little larger, but it will display correctly.

**TangentIdea** · March 31st, 2005, 06:52 PM

Hmm... is the any way to force Printer Utility to add extra printers to the list, ones like the LaserPrinters that would support EPS output?

**Natobasso** · April 4th, 2005, 01:45 PM

You need to create a PDF/X-1a document. That way, it will not create a pdf if there are errors. Drop shadows, even in this format, though, are problematic.

I've seen in InDesign that drop shadows created within the program sometimes either don't print or they appear with a box around them when placed over color (other than white).

Test your file in Acrobat (hopefully you have the Professional version) and you can preview Overprints, Separations and Preview the document. I recommend even printing it yourself to make sure at least that works.

I recommend using a more advanced program for a project as involved as a school yearbook, such as InDesign. It takes a lot of the guess work out of problems like these. For example, you can export directly to PDF/X-1a format and preflight your document before you do it.

**mindbend** · April 20th, 2005, 09:57 PM

Preview and PDF support in Tiger are supposed to be a lot more robust, so here's to hoping that may help as well. PDF 1.5 compliant, yes? As long as Apple takes advantage of that in their Save as PDF engine, there's no reason those shadows should be a problem in Tiger I would think.