Real World Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications

Transparency Flattening

Nothing within InDesign is flattened by Transparency Flattening. Your layers remain intact, and all transparency effects are still live. Instead, it’s the output stream that is flattened. Content is cut apart, re-created, and reassembled in a form acceptable to PostScript (Figure 11.32). And this jigsaw puzzle will image as you expect—if you provide the correct ingredients and the right recipe.

Figure 11.32. During print or export, InDesign starts with transparency involving graphics and text (left), then takes it apart, creating opaque stunt doubles (right) that look like the original effect. Note where the glass cup interacts with text: A text-shaped clipping path is created, which contains a generated image to portray ...