Overprinting White Type, or How to Make Type Invisible

No, this post isn't about a cool magic trick with type. It's really about how to not end up with invisible type. White type and other white elements can sometimes surprise you by not showing up on a printed version of your design. You can see the white type on your screen, so why doesn't it show up on paper?

On your screen:

On your paper:

The most common reason is that somehow those white elements in your design have been set to overprint, and white + overprint = invisibility.

There are several ways to check if any of your white elements are set to overprint. The easiest is to turn on the "Overprint Preview" feature in Illustrator, and InDesign. Simply go to View in the menu bar, and then down to "Overprint Preview." This will simulate what your design will look like when printed. If any white is set to overprint, it will disappear and reappear as you toggle this off and on. The keyboard shortcut for this is the same in Illustrator and InDesign: Command + Option + Shift + Y.

Here is Illustrator's menu bar with Overprint Preview selected:

And here is InDesign's menu bar:

You can also check your pdfs for overprinting white type in Acrobat. In Acrobat 9, an easy way to do this is to go to Advanced on the menu bar, then to Print Production, then to Output Preview.

A menu will come up. Simply check the "Simulate Overprinting" box. Any overprinting white will "disappear" from your design when this is turned on.

No one likes to be surprised when it comes to a press check, and we don't want to hear anyone say, "Hey, where is my white type?" So Lorraine Press has safeguards built into our system that will find any overprinting white, whether it be lines or type, and correct it to knock out. But for your own files, and for those that don't print here at Lorraine (if there happen to be any!), you should always check that your white doesn't overprint.