PowerMath formulas drop out in PDF?

[Dzynr]

Hello everyone. I wonder if anyone can help me with this issue: I am working in Quark 6.5, I have a document that has PowerMath formulas in it. The PowerMath formulas are colored "black", I suppose, the rest of the text in the document is black, and there is a cyan background. I export the .ps file to the desktop, which I then distill to make a PDF of this document with the PowerMath formulas in it. I open the PDF in Acrobat, go to the output preview and I see that, yes, I have only cyan and black plates, however, on the cyan plate, where there are PowerMath formulas, they are knocked out, yet, the black text is not, it is overprinting onto the cyan layer as I would expect. Does anyone have any idea whatsoever why the PowerMath formulas are knocking out? Would anyone have any advice to offer on how to get around that? I'd really appreciate it!

Thank you!!! -Dzynr

[CkretAjint]

Is overprint turned on on that text box and then suppressed on the export? That would cause the knockout and then not to show.

[doubting_thomas]

Are you putting the native PowerMath file in Quark, or is it saved
in a different format. It could be that it's in the wrong color space,
and that's causing the strange output.

[Dzynr]

Hi CkretAjint and doubting thomas,

Thanks for your advice. I'm not sure where to find the "overprint" option for text boxes in Quark. When go to Edit > Preferences, and click on the text box icon, there is a drop-down menu for the text box that has these three options for trapping: absolute, proportionate, and knock out all. I have my text boxes set to absolute.

Also, as far as the PowerMath native file being present, I guess I just do not know enough about PowerMath to understand what this means. All I know is that I have a PowerMath extension loaded into the Quark Extensions manager that allows the formulas to be rendered in the document.

I appreciate your advice and help, I am still trying some trial-and-error approaches to this file to see if I can come up with a solution.

-Dzynr

[doubting_thomas]

It might help if you could export, or save, the graphs into a different
format that can be edited in Illustrator (if you have that available). I
have a feeling your issues are being generated by the PowerMath
graphics and text. What you're describing (with how the knockouts
are occuring) sounds like what happens to RGB images when they are
converted into a DeviceN (spot color), or CMYK color space. Everything
goes to the black plate, or vanishes altogether.

After looking at their web site, it doesn't say anywhere that the plug-in
supports spot color separation. I'd be curious what their tech support
would tell you.

[Virgo Nightingale]

I'm not sure where to find the "overprint" option for text boxes in Quark. When go to Edit > Preferences, and click on the text box icon, there is a drop-down menu for the text box that has these three options for trapping: absolute, proportionate, and knock out all. I have my text boxes set to absolute.
Those are the overall preferences that are applied to all your Quark documents, you may need to change the settings for just that object.

To apply different trapping options to a specific object, go to Windows > Show Trap Information. Depending on what type of image is in the box and what tool you have selected, you should be able to change the settings to overprint or knockout etc.

[Dzynr]

Hi Virgo Nightingale and doubting Thomas,

Thanks for the advice! I never knew about the option in Quark to adjust the trapping of the box before! That is very cool. I found it under View > Show Trap Information and the drop-down menu for Picture had these three options: default, overprint, knockout. I did highlight the boxes that the formulas are in and set it to overprint. Unfortunately, even after doing that, the resulting PDF still showed the formulas knocking out of the cyan background. BUT, it's still great to know that is there, for future issues with whatever else may arise.

I do think the best bet for me at this point is to export it to Illustrator and do my editing there, perhaps making the formulas into graphics and then re-importing them into Quark. Thanks for that tip, dT.

Again, I appreciate the feedback, it has been helpful!

-Dzynr

[jimking]

You could fool it to overprint by creating a "new color" a build of 100% black and what ever the cyan percentage is and make it cmyk not spot and then choose your black text that's not overprinting to make it that mix of black and cyan. It then should show up overprinting.