I have an image that comes out different from how it goes in -- only when printing.
The PDF (you can download it here) displays fine in Acrobat 9, Illustrator CS4 and CS6, Photoshop CS4 (after rasterizing, of course), and in InDesign CS4 and CS6. It looks like this on screen:
However, this is what comes out of our printer:
.. the data lines get converted into closed polygons ..
I say "our" printer, but of course I would never think of testing each and every image this way. It was the client who warned me of this issue; fortunately, he printed his document on his own printer, rather than checking it on-screen. Wouldn't he have done that, it would probably gone off to the presses and not be noticed until signature proofs (which has happened before, with a very confused client hanging on the phone) or even not until after binding and delivery (which also has happened before, but then the client usually was steaming mad).
I've fiddled with opening-then-saving in Acrobat, opening-then-saving as AI with Illustrator, re-frying the PDF, toggling "send all data" and "crop image data to frames" in InDesign, and pasted the image "into" a rectangle to act as clipping mask, on both Mac and PC, with CS versions 4 and 6; all with the same result. The image looks good on screen but it comes out wrong when printing.
The only thing that did work was rasterizing the file with Photoshop, which is of course just about the worst thing one can do with a vector image.
Anyone?