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I searched through the site and I couldn't find an answer to this specific question, so here we go:

I've designed a business card in Illustrator. The background is a darker red. I export it as a PDF and it looks great. Here's what the PDF looks like:

PDF Export of Business Card

The problem is when I upload it to the card printing site (I'm using got print) the upload has a solid black background, like so:

Website Upload with black background

So, is the site just displaying it funny and they should print fine? Or am I doing something wrong? I've made sure it's CMYK not RGB, but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

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  • This ounds like something you should contact the company about. Most likely no one here can give you a clear answer Feb 6, 2015 at 19:49
  • What PDF job options are you using to generate the PDF?
    – Scott
    Feb 6, 2015 at 21:36

1 Answer 1

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The pdf is a packed format, so if you prepared it correctly it should not change*.

Probably you are just seeing it inside the browser. There are some web libraries to view inline pdfs but they are just for... well, viewing.

A profesional printing company should download it and print it with the correct software.

Just make sure you are embeading the colour profile. A good tip is to use spot colors inside your file. In this type of plain design they work well.

And make sure your monitor is somehow calibrated too.

*Make sure you use a prepress setting for your pdf: PDF-X1a or PDF-X3

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