Imported PDF lines locked to grayscale

[CharlieJeit]

Hi

Weird one here - I often use Xara (Photo and Graph Designer + current version) to tweak the vector PDF output files from a Orienteering course planing program. When I went to do this recently I found that some of the line vectors which should have been purple were being rendered in grey, despite the colour properties box slowing the correct shade of purple. I can change every property of the line and edit and change its colour but the lines always stays grey:



I am guessing there is a flaw in the export routine of the planning software but it seems weird I can't fix the imported lines by reapplying the correct properties.

Anyone seen anything like this before?

Charlie

[CharlieJeit]

OK

Solved my own problem! It often happens I find when you try to explain something clearly to a third party.

The issue was that the lines in question used a transparency to allow a slightly hint of the underlying map to show through. Xara rendered this transparency as a grey scale.

If you checked the transparency setting of the line Xara shows it as none



However changing from None to "Flat" and then to "No Transparency" brings back the purple line!

So I assume the route of the problem was a transparency property in the PDF (which did render the colours correctly) which Xara couldn't handle.

Sorry for asking - but maybe this will be helpful to someone else.

Charlie

[handrawn]

have you any idea which transparency type it was in xara ? - luminosity would remove all colour - edit mind you, that would not usually show as no transparency, strange

thanks for coming back with the explanation, not everyone does and it is helpful

[CharlieJeit]

All I can see in Xara is "none" as line transparency type (this is of course different from "no transparency" at least superficially). The clue was the source program which had a special setting for this line type:



Hard to say in which program the error lies, but the fact that the exported PDF when viewed directly showed the purple correctly suggests it might be the Xara PDF importer.

Thanks

Charlie