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How do I flatten an exported PDF in Office 365 Publisher

Anonymous
2023-10-17T19:06:52+00:00

In Publisher, I use the Export / Save for a Commercial Printer to create a "Commercial Press" ready PDF. Unfortunately, when I send the PDF to a print shop for printing, the "transparent" backgrounds of the embedded images show as a discolored area. Is there a way to export a flattened PDF from Publisher? Flattening the PDF using Adobe Acrobat does not do the job correctly.

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-10-17T22:38:35+00:00

    Hello

    I’m Adeyemi and I’d be happy to help you with your question.

    I understand that you're having trouble with the "transparent" backgrounds of the embedded images showing as a discolored area when you export a PDF for a commercial printer from Publisher. Here are some steps you can try:

    1. Compress the Images: Before exporting the PDF, try compressing the images in your Publisher file. To do this, right-click on the image, select the Format Picture option, then click on the Compress Button. In the Compress Pictures dialog box that appears, select Commercial Printing to reduce the image resolution to 300 pixels per inch (ppi)
    2. Flatten the Images: If compressing the images doesn't solve the problem, you might need to flatten them before exporting. Flattening an image combines all layers of the image into one, which can help prevent issues with transparency. However, it's not clear from my current knowledge whether Publisher supports this feature directly.
    3. Use a Different Program: If neither of these options work, you might need to use a different program to flatten the PDF after it's been exported from Publisher. You mentioned that Adobe Acrobat didn't work correctly for this purpose. There might be other software or online tools that can flatten PDFs more effectively.

    I hope this helps

    Give back to the Community. Help the next person who has this issue by indicating if this reply solved your problem. Click Yes or No below

    Regards Adeyemi

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-10-18T13:00:21+00:00

    When you publish as PDF or XPS and get to the Save dialog, click the Options button at the bottom. Then on the Publish Options dialog uncheck 'ISO 19005-1 compliant (PDF/A)' as transparencies are not supported. If it was already unchecked you can...

    Also try to right click and Save As the images with the transparencies from the Pub page as a PNG to your local hard drive, and then replace the original image with that PNG. Alternatively create you images with transparencies with a third party image editor.

    And if you want to try a different PDF tool as Adeyemi suggested, I recommend PrimoPDF, a great freebie that I have used since before MSFT started offering PDF functionality in Office 2007. It will work with any program from which you can print and has the added functionality of being able to append PDFs which no MSFT PDF tool can do.

    https://filehippo.com/download_primopdf/

    DavidF

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