Problem with vertical lines being created around pictures when creating PDF from WORD

[Keith_W_Moser@adobeforums.com]

Any ideas as to why visible borders are being created around inserted pictures when I create a PDF from Microsoft Word? Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

[Jonathan_H@adobeforums.com]

de Siem "Acrobat Professional 6.0 - Unwanted borders around graphics when converting from Word" 3/29/04 1:46am </cgi-bin/webx?13@@.2cd0e91a/0>

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Richard E. Ziegler "Conversion of pictures from Word 2003 documents" 3/2/04 10:34am </cgi-bin/webx?13@@.2cd0611a/1>

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[Nathan_Strong@adobeforums.com]

I actually did a bit of comparitive testing because I got hit with this problem too. Here's the results of my research:

PDF files converted from a Word document that contains either an RGB black TIFF or a true monochrome TIFF file display with a border and/or black lines through the image in Acrobat 6.0 if Word XP/2003 is used as the source application. PDF files converted using the same method in Word 2000 look fine.

Note that by "RGB black" I mean that the TIFF is in an RGB color mode, but a color analysis indicates there are only two colors: black and white (easy way to tell is to select Image > Mode > Indexed, and see how many colors are needed for an "exact" palette).

Prep work:

To make my TIFF files, I opened the Photoshop sample TIFF file "ducky.tif". I converted this file to grayscale (Image > Mode > Grayscale), and saved a copy to "ducky-gray.tif." From this grayscale version I then made a monochrome (image > mode > bitmap). From the monochrome version, I converted back to grayscale and then to RGB.

Next, I made 3 MS Word documents using MS Word 2000. I inserted the grayscale TIF into the first, the monochrome TIF into the second, and the RGB black TIF into the third.

Lastly, I configured PDFMaker in both Word 2000 and Word XP to the default settings.

The tests:

1. I opened all three files in Word 2000 and ran them through PDFmaker. All three of these files look perfect in Acrobat. I ran a preflight analysis using a "list all images" profile:

* Both the RGB black and the grayscale versions show a single image in the appropriate color space.
* The monochrome version shows the image as an bitmask. The black pixels are stored as the mask on a white background (black-on-white). Moving this mask using the TouchUp Object tool does not reveal any black background.

2. I then copied these files to a computer running Word XP (SP3) and ran them through PDFmaker.

* Only the grayscale version came out correctly.
* Both the true monochrome and the RGB black image have a visible black border that changes in width/visiblity depending on the zoom.
* I also tested with an unmodified version of Ducky.tif (which is color) and the image looks fine.

Running the same preflight analysis shows some interesting results:

* Both the true monochrome and RGB black images were turned into bitmasks, like the monochrome document in Word 2000.
* However, unlike the Word 2000 tests, these bitmasks contain the WHITE pixels.
* The "black" part is actually a vector fill that sits behind the image mask. You can see this by moving the masks around with the TouchUp Object tool--notice how the image disappears if you drag it off teh black background.
* The reason you see the borders is because Word is trying to put a raster image exactly on top of a vector fill. Acrobat is effectively too accurate for its own good, because the vector fill is being calculated in realtime while the pixels are simply being scaled.

So what changed? Not the source file. Not Acrobat. Not even the operating system. The only change here was the source application used. Therefore this looks like a Word issue first and foremost.

[John_Bilotta_Jr@adobeforums.com]

There is one other solution, instead of going through a total process of elimination. I found that if you convert the image to RGB (Image>Mode>RGB) in Photoshop and then save the image as a Photoshop EPS (Encapsulated Post Script)File you get no lines in the Word to PDF conversion. It took me some time but it workes like a charm now.

[Nathan_Strong@adobeforums.com]

Well, sure, not using TIFF files is another solution. :-)

Nathan

[Keith_W_Moser@adobeforums.com]

The problem I have is that I have tons of documentation (years of technical documentation) that has monochrome/RGB tiffs. It would be a tremendous amount of effort (YEARS) to solve this problem if I had to change image format. Seems like I just need to drop back to Word 2000 to solve my problem. :(

Thanks to all for your help!!!

[Albert_Bickford@adobeforums.com]

I'm very glad to see this information, because this is a persistent problem that I've noticed with various combinations of products for at least five years. Word isn't the only program that treats graphics in PDF files this way; I've also seen it happen with some versions of Ventura Publisher. Granted, this isn't strictly speaking a PDF problem, but it becomes apparent in a PDF file (and perhaps not in other circumstances), so people are likely to look here for help with it.

I did some further experimentation, and for me the black rectangle appears with the white bitmask whenever any of several types of graphic files are inserted in a Word document (bmp, png, Microsoft Draw, as well as tif; basically anything Word calls a "bitmap") AND when the only colors that are actually used in the graphic are black and white (regardless of the number of colors in the palatte). If 256 grays are used, or the graphic is full color, then the black rectangle is not inserted. It also does not get inserted if the graphic is a .jpg, .gif, or what word calls a metafile, although these graphic formats tend to produce larger PDF files (sometimes MUCH larger). I don't have the tools to make an Encapsulated Postscript version of a graphic, so I can't experiment with it.

So, in summary, there don't seem to be a lot of options if one wants to have compact black and white graphics in Word 2003, create a PDF from it, and not run the risk of the black lines showing up along the edges on certain printers.

Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

[de_Siem@adobeforums.com]

Don't use Word 2003, use 2000 instead.

[Unregistered]

Thanks so much for this!
I am using Word 2010 and tried a .doc and .docx. I have an image created as an .ai saved as a .jpg. I saw the info about RGB and that made a lightbulb go on over my head.
I imported the .ai into Photoshop at 330 dpi, changed the mode to RGB and saved as .gif.
Worked perfectly! Thanks!!