# pdf help, mysterious behavior in scanned files



## VictorBravo (Jul 4, 2013)

The local prosecutor scans and emails legal pleadings to me daily. It has been working very well until recently. The office purchased a fast and modern scanner/copier with automatic email forwarding.

The first three weeks it worked fine. But now the scans I get from them are strange. I would note that the behavior described below only occurs if there is any color on the scanned page (A plain text page comes to me without problems).

Here is how a document would look after it is emailed to me and I open it in Acrobat Pro:





Here is what it looks like if I print it:





I OCRed and optimized it, which helps some:







Has anybody here seen this sort of behavior before? The prosecutor's tech support is pretty clueless, but this problem is not only affecting me. I'm fairly confident there is some scan setting that is telling the scanner that, whenever it sees color of any kind, it ought to change the setting to something strange.

An additional item of info: if I convert the pdfs to jpegs, they print nicely. This tells me no information is lost in the scan, but I don't want to convert pdfs to jpegs on a daily basis.


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## Edward (Jul 4, 2013)

My eyes may not be good enough to see what you are talking about when I blow up the thumbnails. What should difference should I be looking for between the emailed and printed sets of documents?


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## VictorBravo (Jul 4, 2013)

The second image almost looks completely redacted and has lots of background dots. The first image is crisp.

The third image has crisp text, but messed up embedded image where the file stamp is.


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## VictorBravo (Jul 4, 2013)

I'll try a better image of what it looks like printed:


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## Semper Fidelis (Jul 4, 2013)

Sent you a PM...


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## VictorBravo (Jul 4, 2013)

After kicking it around with Rich, I've found a work-around. My print settings have always been to print color as black (so I only have to stock up on black ink for the inkjets, and the laser printer prints black anyway).

Some new setting in the prosecutor's scanner apparently picks up halos when the scanner detects the image to be a color image rather than text. So the resolution is very fine, meaning that if I print color as black, every little pixel becomes a black dot.

If I tell the printer to print as color, the little dots are rendered very small and unnoticeable, and the document looks fine.

So, I've learned something new--apparently very high resolution is not always the best.


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## NaphtaliPress (Jul 4, 2013)

Because they expect you to buy their expensive color toner! 


VictorBravo said:


> So, I've learned something new--apparently very high resolution is not always the best.


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## Semper Fidelis (Jul 4, 2013)

VictorBravo said:


> After kicking it around with Rich, I've found a work-around. My print settings have always been to print color as black (so I only have to stock up on black ink for the inkjets, and the laser printer prints black anyway).
> 
> Some new setting in the prosecutor's scanner apparently picks up halos when the scanner detects the image to be a color image rather than text. So the resolution is very fine, meaning that if I print color as black, every little pixel becomes a black dot.
> 
> ...



Do you have an option to print in Grayscale? If it doesn't, one way to spare your ink cartridge might be "Optimize Scanned PDF" within Acrobat Pro.


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## VictorBravo (Jul 4, 2013)

Semper Fidelis said:


> Do you have an option to print in Grayscale? If it doesn't, one way to spare your ink cartridge might be "Optimize Scanned PDF" within Acrobat Pro.



Yes, I found the grayscale option under "business documents." That looks like the best solution. Prints fine.

I'm still going to ask the prosecutor's office to reduce resolution. A 10 page file from them is over 2 MB compared to 0.2 - 0.4 MB for something I normally scan. Our Federal Courts all require pdf filings, and they limit resolution to 300 dpi, which works fine for court pleadings.


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## Semper Fidelis (Jul 4, 2013)

VictorBravo said:


> Semper Fidelis said:
> 
> 
> > Do you have an option to print in Grayscale? If it doesn't, one way to spare your ink cartridge might be "Optimize Scanned PDF" within Acrobat Pro.
> ...



For some reason, a lot of copiers don't do a very good job when you lower the scan resolution. I've tried settings on some in the office and they look like garbage where I can scan using Adobe PDF and a scanner and it does a much better job. It may be the only way they can make sure it looks decent but that doesn't help you. If you run Optimize Scanned PDF in Acrobat Pro 8 as you get them then it will straighten them out and knock out the background and reduce your storage size requirements.


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## VictorBravo (Jul 4, 2013)

Semper Fidelis said:


> For some reason, a lot of copiers don't do a very good job when you lower the scan resolution. I've tried settings on some in the office and they look like garbage where I can scan using Adobe PDF and a scanner and it does a much better job. It may be the only way they can make sure it looks decent but that doesn't help you. If you run Optimize Scanned PDF in Acrobat Pro 8 as you get them then it will straighten them out and knock out the background and reduce your storage size requirements.



Good to know about the copiers. 

I did Optimize and it helped (that was the third image in my initial post). My only complaint is that I get perhaps 10-20 files a day and it takes a bit of time to Optimize each file. The time adds up and it was something I didn't need to do before. 

For now it's just going to be printing by grayscale and optimizing on an ad hoc basis if I have to forward files. Storage is cheaper than time these days.


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## Wayne (Jul 4, 2013)

The problem resides with the scanner in the other office--the sending or originating scanner. 

If someone used a highlighter on a document, and you scan it as a black & white document, then the highlighted portions will appear as if they've been run through a FOIA request--the highlighted portions will be blacked out.

The best solution is to scan color as color, and then at least you can read the PDF correctly on your computer. Whether it will print acceptably is a hit or miss toss-up, unless you also print color as color.


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