terrym
Junior Reader
Posts: 15
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Post by terrym on Aug 8, 2020 17:44:31 GMT
I uploaded my cover to Lulu (Xpress) - the cover source.pdf file is attached. The background color was set to CMYK (0, 0, 0.6, 0) and you can see the yellow background in the source file. cover source.pdf (37.34 KB) The resulting "printer ready" file created by Lulu is also attached as cover ready.pdf. It appears to me that the yellow background has completely dropped of and I am left with essentially a white background. cover ready.pdf (46.96 KB) I will of course ask Lulu to explain what happened. But before I contact them I thought I'd ask here whether this is either surprising or as expected, and why. Thank you. |
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Post by BlueAndGold on Aug 8, 2020 19:07:06 GMT
Wow! I have no idea but I am deeply curious!
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Aug 9, 2020 2:01:55 GMT
All white now. That's is weird.
BUT CYMK settings mean nothing to me. I work on the basis of WYSIWYG in Paintshop Pro 95 (I may update one day!). And normally I do. I would assume that if I saved my jpgs as PDF, which I don't, I would get WYSIWYG too. Mind you I think I made an entire picture book as a full colour PDF once, but I don't recall if I uploaded it as a PDF.
What did you make the PDFs in?
I assume it has the Flatten or Merge option and you did that?
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2020 6:11:26 GMT
I uploaded my cover to Lulu (Xpress) - the cover source.pdf file is attached. The background color was set to CMYK (0, 0, 0.6, 0) and you can see the yellow background in the source file. The resulting "printer ready" file created by Lulu is also attached as cover ready.pdf. It appears to me that the yellow background has completely dropped of and I am left with essentially a white background. I will of course ask Lulu to explain what happened. But before I contact them I thought I'd ask here whether this is either surprising or as expected, and why. Thank you. What a difference! I made a book in Lulu after the update and my all-in-one cover turned out exactly the way I had designed it. It's amazing that the colour has been lost. Use the page benziger told us about, to contact Lulu. I found the best method is live contact. Lulu is located in North Carolina. help.lulu.com/s/contactsupport?language=en_US |
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terrym
Junior Reader
Posts: 15
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Post by terrym on Aug 9, 2020 15:24:55 GMT
All white now. That's is weird. BUT CYMK settings mean nothing to me. I work on the basis of WYSIWYG in Paintshop Pro 95 (I may update one day!). And normally I do. I would assume that if I saved my jpgs as PDF, which I don't, I would get WYSIWYG too. Mind you I think I made an entire picture book as a full colour PDF once, but I don't recall if I uploaded it as a PDF. What did you make the PDFs in? I assume it has the Flatten or Merge option and you did that? The PDF is made using LaTex, which is all about making highly compliant PDFs. Yes, flattened. I used the same LaTex to make a 300-page color cookbook (also using Lulu Xpress) and the cover colors (including background) turned out exactly as expected. I will report back after I hear from Lulu. I suspect the program they have to "normalize" submitted covers has a bug. |
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Aug 10, 2020 1:10:18 GMT
A bug in Lulu? you jest ...
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sirram
Senior Printer
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money
Posts: 269
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Post by sirram on Aug 10, 2020 14:23:27 GMT
Maybe a Lulu bug - or possibly there is some syntax in "cover source.pdf" that is not supported by Lulu's converter - either way, leading to the colour loss.
"cover ready.pdf (46.96 KB)" is much bigger than "cover source.pdf (37.34 KB)" and, looking inside the two files, they are completely different. For the techies among you, save the two PDFs to your desktop and then open them ("Open With") using Notepad.
I think we would all like to know what the problem is. In this example, it has affected a book cover, but presumably could also occur in book-content PDFs as well.
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terrym
Junior Reader
Posts: 15
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Post by terrym on Aug 10, 2020 15:24:11 GMT
Maybe a Lulu bug - or possibly there is some syntax in "cover source.pdf" that is not supported by Lulu's converter - either way, leading to the colour loss. "cover ready.pdf (46.96 KB)" is much bigger than "cover source.pdf (37.34 KB)" and, looking inside the two files, they are completely different. For the techies among you, save the two PDFs to your desktop and then open them ("Open With") using Notepad. I think we would all like to know what the problem is. In this example, it has affected a book cover, but presumably could also occur in book-content PDFs as well. You could certainly be right that some syntax is not supported by the converter. On the other hand, I have now tried the "source" file with 7 different PDF readers and all render perfectly so understand the syntax. Basically my source file is: (1) dump a bucket of yellow-ish paint on the whole cover, (2) draw two red rectangles, and (3) finish with text in an assortment of places. And (as justkevin would say): Bob's your uncle. My wild guess is that their code makes some (incorrect) assumption regarding the embedded font files, and that assumption is inconsistent with a math font (and, yes, all of the math on the cover is rendered with a standard OpenType math font). Thus, their code ends up with a wild pointer or some other overwriting of PDF instructions. Probably, the only way for them to get to the bottom of this is to run their "normalizer" against my cover with a debugger loaded. Since I am sure they outsourced this code, my cover will probably fade to yellow before I get an answer. |
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Aug 11, 2020 1:10:32 GMT
"My wild guess is that their code makes some (incorrect) assumption regarding the embedded font files, and that assumption is inconsistent with a math font (and, yes, all of the math on the cover is rendered with a standard OpenType math font). Thus, their code ends up with a wild pointer or some other overwriting of PDF instructions. Probably, the only way for them to get to the bottom of this is to run their "normalizer" against my cover with a debugger loaded. Since I am sure they outsourced this code, my cover will probably fade to yellow before I get an answer."
Interesting. My covers are 'art'. That is, the fonts used are not fonts, but a text tool within the art prog. The entire cover is an image, just as if painted with a brush, not with a 'typewritten' page. If art, say a jpg, is converted to a PDF it should all be as a single image, no actual individual fonts involved.
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sirram
Senior Printer
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money
Posts: 269
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Post by sirram on Aug 11, 2020 6:33:22 GMT
It would be interesting to know if the problem is with that specific colour or with all colours.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2020 7:41:22 GMT
Interesting. My covers are 'art'. That is, the fonts used are not fonts, but a text tool within the art prog. The entire cover is an image, just as if painted with a brush, not with a 'typewritten' page. If art, say a jpg, is converted to a PDF it should all be as a single image, no actual individual fonts involved.I, like you Kevin, make my covers in Paintshop Pro., but I copy it to Microsoft Publisher for the text I can get there. Then i return it to PSP. it is saved as a jpg. The art as you say is then converted to a PDF and I have had no trouble with text or colour.
PS I edited this because I forgot the comma after I.  That's not to say I don't like you Kevin, I do, but the lack of comma completely altered the meaning."I like you Kevin-------.", is very different from "I, like you Kevin-------" What I think I should have written is "Like you Kevin, I make my-----" I believe there is a grammatical rule about separating subject and verb. It was so long ago I studied grammar!!!!
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Aug 12, 2020 0:34:03 GMT
Interesting. My covers are 'art'. That is, the fonts used are not fonts, but a text tool within the art prog. The entire cover is an image, just as if painted with a brush, not with a 'typewritten' page. If art, say a jpg, is converted to a PDF it should all be as a single image, no actual individual fonts involved.I, like you Kevin, make my covers in Paintshop Pro., but I copy it to Microsoft Publisher for the text I can get there.
I am not sure why you would need to do that. Every font on your PC is available for use by anything else that uses fonts, and that includes PSP with its text tool. (Windows places every font in to a shared Fonts folder).
Then i return it to PSP. it is saved as a jpg. The art as you say is then converted to a PDF and I have had no trouble with text or colour.
Indeed, nothing should have problems with fonts that become un-fonts
PS I edited this because I forgot the comma after I. That's not to say I don't like you Kevin, I do, but the lack of comma completely altered the meaning."I like you Kevin-------.", is very different from "I, like you Kevin-------" What I think I should have written is "Like you Kevin, I make my-----" I believe there is a grammatical rule about separating subject and verb. It was so long ago I studied grammar!!!!
Punctuation can make all the difference. Fiction writers in particular should treat it with care to make sure it's in the right place to mean exactly what they want it to mean. Especially in speech because it can also help display the emotion of the speaker. Init? |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2020 5:40:35 GMT
I, like you Kevin, make my covers in Paintshop Pro., but I copy it to Microsoft Publisher for the text I can get there.
I am not sure why you would need to do that. Every font on your PC is available for use by anything else that uses fonts, and that includes PSP with its text tool. (Windows places every font in to a shared Fonts folder).
Kevin, I like the extra way to use fonts that you can get in Microsoft Publisher. You can even have vertical words.
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Aug 12, 2020 18:16:32 GMT
"Kevin, I like the extra way to use fonts that you can get in Microsoft Publisher. You can even have vertical words."
PSP's text tool is a bit limited I must admit. I just adjust text via cut and paste.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2020 11:17:05 GMT
"Kevin, I like the extra way to use fonts that you can get in Microsoft Publisher. You can even have vertical words." PSP's text tool is a bit limited I must admit. I just adjust text via cut and paste. Yes you probably used cut and paste for the title of your book Just a Couch in Lulu. However I prefer this cover. Nice effect with the font. www.amazon.co.uk/Just-Couch-Kevin-Lomas/dp/1291621091 |
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That's not to say I don't like you Kevin, I do, but the lack of comma completely altered the meaning."I like you Kevin-------.", is very different from "I, like you Kevin-------" What I think I should have written is "Like you Kevin, I make my-----" 