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Re: PDF saved as a Blank Page

Posted: Fri May 08, 2020 8:05 am
by Bill
John_Ha wrote:Bill

If I download the original file and open it with LO 6.3.5.2 it looks OK but when I export it to a PDF/A-2b, it gives a brown background to the barcode.

If I then send both brown backgrounds to the back Writer reveals two sets of white letters which I delete. Just to be sure I bring the barcode to the front. It looks fine in LO Writer but the PDF/A-2b still has brown behind the barcode as in the screenshot below.
I suspect that this is caused by the z-order (front to back order) of objects being changed during the export. That would be a bug in LO 6.3.5.2. The export using LO 6.4.3.2 does not have the brown background covering the bar code.
John_Ha wrote:If I open it in AOO 4.1.7 a brown background covers everything on the left and the title is missing on the right. If I send both brown backgrounds to the back the white text is revealed which I delete. The griffin at bottom right is a white rectangle - I send it back one level to reveal the griffin. I have to send the front cover image backwards to reveal the title. It now looks OK. When I export it to a PDF (AOO does not offer the /A-2b option) it is exported correctly.
I believe this is a bug in AOO 4.1.7 which sometimes changes the z-order of objects. In the original file produced by LO 6.3, the brown background is behind every other object and the griffin image is in front of every other object. When the original file is opened by AOO 4.1.7, the brown background has moved in front of every other object and the griffin image has moved behind every other object. Other objects/images have also changed position in the z-order.

Re: PDF saved as a Blank Page

Posted: Fri May 08, 2020 10:15 am
by John_Ha
Bill wrote:I believe this is a bug in AOO 4.1.7 which sometimes changes the z-order of objects.
Can you possibly give me a quick overview of what the z-order hierarchy is. I noticed that in content.xml the z-order was either 1 or 2 but I don't know what that means.

Re: PDF saved as a Blank Page

Posted: Fri May 08, 2020 12:49 pm
by Bill
The z-order is the stacking order for objects. Each draw object and image has a unique z-index value (search in content.xml for "z-index"). In this case there are 12 draw objects and 4 images with z-index values from 0 to 15. If two objects overlap, the one with the higher z-index value would be in front of the other object. When you select an object and select "Back One", Writer should swap the z-index values of the selected object and the next lower object.

In the document uploaded by the OP, Shape3 (one of the brown backgrounds) has z-index = 0 (behind all other objects), but if the document is opened by AOO 4.1.7 and saved with a different name, the content.xml of the new document will reveal that Shape3 has z-index = 15 (in front of all other objects).

Re: PDF saved as a Blank Page

Posted: Fri May 08, 2020 12:58 pm
by John_Ha
Bill
Thanks!

Re: PDF saved as a Blank Page

Posted: Fri May 08, 2020 1:04 pm
by RoryOF
This emphasises the point that final, detailed formatting of anything should always be done on one computer, using the one (unchanged) version of the editing program.