What happened to my color?

When you create a graph in Prism, you have the option to customize the color of nearly every element of the graph (the data points, bars, error bars, axes, backgrounds, area fills, etc.). Prism also provides the option of exporting your graphs (or Layouts) to a number of different file formats, including PDF. However, Prism graphs containing an element with a semi-transparent color will not be rendered correctly after exporting the graph to PDF or EPS: any graph elements containing semi-transparency will not be included in the exported PDF or EPS.

Note: this only affects the Windows version of Prism. Exporting to PDF and EPS currently works as expected for the Mac version of Prism 8. We plan to fix this issue in future versions of Prism 8 for Windows.

Example

A graph made in Prism with two area fills, each assigned a semi-transparent color:

The same graph after being exported to PDF and opened using Adobe Reader:

Workarounds

• Print the graph to PDF instead of exporting it. To Print to PDF in Prism on Windows 10, open the graph, click the Print button from the main toolbar (or press CTRL + P on your keyboard). Select "Microsoft Print to PDF" from the dropdown menu, then click OK. The file itself will not be printed, but you will be offered to save the file in PDF format while preserving the semi-transparent colors as well as pattern fills for 100% transparent portions of the graph.
• Export the Prism graph to EMF+ format, then import the exported EMF+ file in MS Office. Once in office, export the file from MS Office to PDF format. You can also use other software that renders EMF and allows exporting to PDF.
• Consider exporting to a format that supports semi-transparent (TIFF, PNG) colors as listed at the bottom of this page: ttps://www.graphpad.com/guides/prism/8/user-guide/index.htm?tranparent_and_opaque_colors.htm.
• Replace semi-transparent colors on your graph with solid colors. Note: in many cases, you can simply choose a lighter shade of the color of choice that is solid (as opposed to using a semi-transparent color).