Overprinting white text

A practical example

As part of the catalog design for Münchner Stoff Spring 2014, I placed a full-page ad for Ralph Lauren Home. I received the photo and logo as separate files, with the photo being a jpg file and the logo being an ai file. When I placed them in Adobe InDesign, my specially configured Preflight settings gave me the message "Content contains overprinting of white." This would mean that the white logo would be overprinted by the background photo, which, of course, shouldn't happen. This article will explain how to detect and correct such errors early on so that the ad can be printed correctly.

without logo (wrong) and with logo (right)

Creating ideal conditions: Setting up Preflight correctly

In order to even detect the "white overprint" error, Preflight (a type of warning system that highlights problems in InDesign) must be set up correctly. Default settings are unfortunately no help here. For print media design, I generally work with a Preflight profile that I created myself and is specifically tailored to print needs. One of the points that I want Preflight to warn me about is called "overprint applied to white or (paper) color" . This causes Preflight to alert me with a red dot when a white or paper-colored object is overprinted and thus invisible in print. Of course, you must not forget to let this manually set preflight profile run in the background while you work in InDesign and to check the file with exactly this Preflight profile at the end.

Create a new Preflight profile - Enable "Overprint applied to white or (paper) color"

Incorrect profile (basic profile) does not detect the error and does not display a message

correct profile (manually created profile) detects the error and warns me

Solve the core problem: Edit the source file in Illustrator

The solution to the problem lies in editing the white logo (AI file) in Adobe Illustrator. I added a colored background to a layer below so I could see the white logo lettering. Then I switched to the Overprint Preview (in the View menu). Here I could double-check that "Ralph Lauren" really wouldn't be printed.

I go to View - Overprint Preview, Adobe Illustrator to see what is actually printed and what is not printed

Overprint preview in Adobe Illustrator: “Home” would be printed, “Ralph Lauren” would not be printed

Next, I had to format the “Ralph Lauren” lettering so that it wouldn’t be overprinted:

Window - Attributes

Select "Ralph Lauren"

Deactivate area or contour overprint

(Note: I disabled white overprinting in Adobe Illustrator CS4. In Illustrator CC, you can also do this in the print dialog under File - Document Setup.)

Fix problem in Indesign: Relink source file

The white "Ralph Lauren" font in the source file would no longer overprint. I relinked the corrected AI file in InDesign. My custom Preflight profile had a green dot and no longer indicated any problems. So, this file could go to print without worry.

before

after

Adobe Acrobat Pro: One last check

Adobe Acrobat Pro offers the ability to perform additional checks before a PDF file is submitted to the printer. Here, I was able to perform a final check to ensure the file would look its best when printed. Here, too, I used a Preflight feature.

Advanced - Preflight ... "PDF Analysis" - "Potential Overprinting Issues" - Double-click

Preflight warning with the original ai source file

Preflight warning with the corrected ai source file (overprint of white disabled)