Why does 2 column text export with drop shadow

Question

I have a text box in an object state. That text box has an object style. The style contains a shadw on the object, not the text. When I export using in5, the shadow is also being applied to the text. When testing, if I remove the shadow from the object style completely, it also removes it from the text. Please download a screen shot of my html next to the original indesign.

https://alteredimage.sharefile.com/d-sdb88dc692c94c268

Comments

I'd be happy to investigate.

Which text rendering setting are you using and could you send me a 1-page IDML file to test?

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Text Rendering Setting: Images (preserves exact appearance)

Although this is the case during our testing phase, I do hope once we purchase the plugin that we can switch to HTML with local font embedding. Will that change the output?

You can download a sample at:
https://alteredimage.sharefile.com/d-sf956c5b4452402ab

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Thanks for including the file.

If you try exporting with HTML local fallback and you don't see the issue in the demo, you won't see it with HTML local embedding in the licensed version.

I will take a look either way, because this sounds like a bug that should be resolved.

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I exported out with local fallback and that did resolve the shadow issue. BUT, our document was rescaled using liquid layouts, and when I export as local fallback, I noticed that the fonts were huge (probably set to the original scale). I am assuming this is a different issue now?

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Yes, HTML fonts should not scale with Liquid Layout.

I'll take a look at that as well.

Answer 1

In some cases, especially when a Drop Shadow or Outer Glow is applied--InDesign includes extra space around the image to show the effect.

This results in images getting mis-positioned because their actual height/width don't match what InDesign says they are.

To compensate for this, in5 sometimes converts the text frames to outlines and compares their size in order to improve the positioning of the image.

In the case of this file, creating outlines causes the Object drop shadow to jump to the outlined text (because the background is removed).

You can test this in InDesign by choosing Type > Create Outlines.

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To fix it: Use the InDesign Effects panel (found under Window) to remove the Object Drop Shadow FX. Then the Fill inside the Effects panel and apply the same Drop Shadow FX.

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That Drop Shadow won't migrate when converted to outlines because InDesign knows that it belongs to the Fill (which is removed when text outlines are created).

Hopefully I can make in5 smart enough to do this automatically in the future, but there are a lot of variables, and it can be difficult to guess the intention of the designer.