I am having some problems with the PDF files that I make using the PDFSharp library. The files are ok as long as I am viewing them normally.
However I need these files to be changed using the accessibility options (Edit -> Preferences -> Accessibility (in the left menu Categories) -> Report Document Colors -> Custom Color). Whenever there is image with transperancy and/or transparent masks and the Background color is set to black everything disappears.
I looked at the PDFSharp code and it seems that they are setting some transparent SMask, which I did not find to do anything noticeable (at least for me), but I am not sure if I disable it will it screw up something that I cannot think of.
Most probably I won’t get help on this one, but I hope that someone knows something more about this problem with PDF Transparency and the Accessibility options.
The transparency mask is created for images with transparency only.
So if your images contain black lines and a transparent background and you change the color of PDF pages to black, you will see black lines on a black background – you will see nothing.
If your images contain black lines on a white background, you will see your image as you know it: black lines on a white background.
Transparency is a feature, it’s optional.
Maybe there’s a bug in PDFsharp. If I watch the output of the Graphics sample with black background color, pages 4 and 5 are completely black (looks wrong to me).
The output of the Hello MigraDoc sample looks correct to me. The image on page 1 does not use transparency and keeps it white background, the chart on page 6 is transparent (which leads to black lines on a black background).
But maybe that’s a bug in Adobe Reader – everything looks fine if I do not set a background color, but activate the transparency grid instead.
If you think that your images do not contain transparency, then we’ll need files (PDF and image) for further examination.
Edit: I just checked the output of the Graphics sample with Adobe Acrobat 5 – all pages display correctly even with black background color. With Adobe Acrobat 8 and Adobe Reader X pages 4 and 5 are black. Looks like a bug in Adobe Acrobat/Reader to me.