Gradients not displayed correctly

[benradu]

Hi guys,
I knew PDF-XChange Viewer can't handle gradients very well but this is an example where they are really ugly.
Please see the attachment. There is a drawing with gradients and a bitmap showing how is displayed on my computer, all in the same file.
Everything looks OK in Adobe Reader.
I am using the latest build (50) on XP with SP3.
Regards,
BR

[benradu]

I see the attachment was downloaded 10 times already. Anybody can at least confirm the problem?
Thanks.
BR

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi benradu,

I knew PDF-XChange Viewer can't handle gradients very well

To be fair to the dev team I should point out that this example you have supplied is not actually a gradient, it is a series of bars drawn closely together and even Adobe Viewer does not always display such 'fake' gradients nicely sometimes. Take a look at the attached screen shot of your file in our viewer and Adobe Reader side by side and at the same size.

[benradu]

Hi Paul,
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
Your screen shot at least confirms that Adobe Reader displays that ... whatever it is, correctly.
Anyway, that's what OOo Draw produces from a gradient.
The fist image is displayed correctly, the second is the bitmap which shows how I see it in PDF-X on my computer.
That's why I said that both drawings are in the same (pdf) file.
So no mater which viewer you use, the second drawing will look incorrect, it's a bitmap.
But the first one is shown correctly in Adobe Reader and incorrectly in PDF-X.
Regards,
BR

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi again benradu,

point taken, unfortunately it can be quite a juggling act to balance the needs of conforming to the PDF specification and also trying to support as many types of PDF documents as possible. It seems that this is a case where since we cannot control how a document is created we must make a call on what we will do for rendering. I don't think at this juncture that there will likely be any movement here.

regards

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

2 benradu: please open the file into the Adobe Reader, and try to change the zoom level - on some zooms the same file will be rendered good enough, but on some even worse than into our Viewer. So, where is the problem?

I believe that our rendering isn't the maximum we can do, but I also know that sometimes we have to implement some 'features' step-by-step.

[benradu]

Thanks Ivan and Paul,
Probably even for Adobe depends on which version we have. To me looks fine at any zoom level. But I disabled Adobe's auto update and I don't do manual updates either. So I still have 9.1.3 which was installed by my IS guys.
I thought it might something simple to fix. Not a critical issue though.
Regards,
BR

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Bernadu,

The latest build of Adobe's Viewer suffers from the same rendering issue as our Viewer - e.g. zooming up/down causes it from time to time to show the gradients incorrectly. The problem originates in the techniques used by OO to generate those PDFs, and the result is several Viewers struggling to render their output.

We are looking into it and trying to improve our product all the time, but this might take it's time.

Regards,
Stefan