Reader Displays a Black Block Behind All Text in PDF documents

Has the form field highlighting been turned on and the fill color set to black?

You could also try setting the zoom to a different value.

Form field highlighting is set to only highlight the field borders. This is happening on all text, not just form fields. Sometimes the black text background changes from black to other colors while scrolling or zooming.

Here is an example of some the text background changing to a maroon color:

[img]http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/5769/example2ms4.png[/img]

Anyone? Nothing like a fresh set of Monday eyes....

I have the same problem with Terminal Services using Adobe Reader 8.0 and 8.1. I thought it was a graphics issue related to my server or WYSE thin client. However this morning I upgraded both my server and WYSE thin client, same problem. The colors randomly change as you change pages or zoom levels.

As I am troubleshooting this I found my brand new Dell Latitude E5500 laptop with Adobe Reader 9.0 is having a similar problem. I don't have the color issue, but when viewing a pdf document numerous paragraphs are solid black. If I print this document to a color printer the black paragraphs are highlighted light blue. I installed the latest update, did not help. Is there a setting for form field highlighting in Reader? I changed background color from black to white, still have solid black where there should be text.

I am trying to eliminate paper copies in our manufacturing plant, but cannot until Adobe Reader can provide legible text. Note these same pdf documents appear correctly on my Linux machines running Adobe Reader 7.0. Do I need to downgrade all my windows pc's/servers to 7.0?

Check your preference settings. (edit, preferences, accessibility) Check the settings for "replace document colors". Checking the "only change the color of black text or line art" works for Reader 9.0.

For 8.0 or 8.1 try the edit, preferences, page display, page content and information settings. I checked all but the "show transparency grid". This got rid of the wrong color problems. You may also want to try the "line weights setting". (under the View menu, or ctrl+5)

Why does reader now require these obscure preference settings to be changed to simply view a document? How are novice operators going to be able to open and read a document? Is it the settings when the pdf was created that causes these issues? Are there "default" settings that should be used?

I have found that the problem with most cases of this is that your terminal services session is running only on 8-bit of colour. If you are using a program such as "HP ThinConnect" on a Thinclient, click on edit then click the display tab, then change color settings from 256 color to high color (16-bit).

Try this :

1. Open Adobe Reader V8
2. Goto... Edit, Preferences
3. Under Categories ...select Page Display
4. Under Rendering ......change 'Smooth Text:' to None
5. Untick ...Smooth line art
6. Untick ...Smooth images
7. Select 'OK'

Cheers !