[Solved] Post Script Transparency When Creating a PDF

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Morgen

I have standard header/footer template that I use to create forms, unfortunately one of the forms I have comes from an outside source. I need to overlay this document, as provided, onto my standard template. I have generated a post script file, broken it into each sheet and inserted the sheets as an letter sized image over the template.

At this point if I generate a pdf in Scribus the post script images, which are transparent on the screen, are rendered with an obscured background that covers my template. Interestingly if I use an eps file the transparency is preserved, but encapsulated post scripts do not support margins so each image size is different and cannot be quickly inserted and maintain scale or proportion.

When I first ran into this problem I was running Scribus 1.3.3.14 but have since updated incrementally to Scribus 1.5.0svn in the hopes that it was a bug that would be fixed by newer versions. I am running Ubuntu 11.10.

Thanks for any suggestions that you may have.

Meho R.

Which PDF version you're exporting to? Note that not all versions support transparency (PDF/X-3 being the most important and common example). Try exporting to PDF 1.4 or higher.

Morgen

I usually use pdf 1.4 so as to remain compatible with folks using older versions of pdf readers but I think that I did try newer types without success.
I will check this and post back.

Morgen

Quote from: Meho R. on March 16, 2012, 11:41:37 AM
Which PDF version you're exporting to? Note that not all versions support transparency (PDF/X-3 being the most important and common example). Try exporting to PDF 1.4 or higher.

I am using pdf version 1.5.

Meho R.

If you can post an example PDF file which shows the problem, along with an image for testing purposes, please do so.

Morgen

Quote from: Meho R. on March 20, 2012, 02:41:46 AM
If you can post an example PDF file which shows the problem, along with an image for testing purposes, please do so.

Attached is a simple example of my issue. I have included the Scribus file, the postscript "image" and the pdf output. The postscript covers the master page but not the text object on the page. I am starting to think this is a bug with pdf export since image and svg export works as expected.

Quote from: Meho R. on March 16, 2012, 11:41:37 AM
Which PDF version you're exporting to? Note that not all versions support transparency (PDF/X-3 being the most important and common example). Try exporting to PDF 1.4 or higher.

I also noticed that the Preflight Verifier will give transparency warnings when selecting inappropriate formats like postscript,  pdf/x-3 or pdf 1.3.

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Meho R.

I see. Try "Embed PDF & EPS Files" option in "Save as PDF" dialog ("General" tab).

Morgen

That fixes it! It also reduces the time to create and the size of the pdf dramatically (8.6 mb -> 0.4 mb).
I notice that this feature is identified as EXPERIMENTAL. It must have been added when I updated Scribus but I did not notice.
Thanks for  all your help!!

Meho R.

Glad to help. This feature is "experimental" forever now, but never really had a single issue with it. Useful for vector graphics included via Image Frame, as well as Render Frames (e.g., for LaTeX), because vectors stay vectors. Without this option, vectors get rasterized, which results in much larger file size and PDF generating time, as you noticed.

Nermander

If I recall correct the experimental part is that it is not "correctly" handled by color management.

And I guess that the reason the transparency was missing is the when postscript is rasterised by ghostscript it gets a background that is not transparent. Not sure if it is possible to tell ghostscript to create a transparent background instead...?