Strange pdf image behavior in Keynote, please help

[gauchogolfer]

OK, so I have a problem that's got me pulling out my hair.

I have a Keynote presentation (for an upcoming job interview, thus the stress) which contains a number of .pdf images. These were mainly generated using Illustrator CS2, from output of a mathematics package.

These .pdf images are now randomly corrupted. For instance, the axis of one plot will be garbled, while the other is fine, and the axis labels are fine. Or, some extra text inserted into the body of the plot disappears, while the rest is OK.

Now, what's got me confused is the random nature of this process. For instance, it was fine at first, but after saving, quitting, and reopening, it was corrupted. Save as, open again, and now it's OK. But, different things are corrupted. Basically it's hit or miss each time I open it.

Also, I can have two versions of this presentation open at once, called v1 and v2. Some things look OK in v1 and some in v2. Now, if I cut out a bad figure from v1, and copy in a good version from v2, the result in v1 is the same. So, I can't just copy/paste over it. Whatever the problem is, it's endemic to the Keynote presentation.

Any ideas as to what might be causing this? Are there any known issues with pdf handling? Any programs from Adobe I should uninstall/reinstall?

I'd like to get this sorted out quickly, given my upcoming interview.

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I've found that PDFs produce different results in Keynote than other types of graphics, sometimes in useful ways and sometimes in annoying ways. I'd suggest exporting them out of Preview as JPEGs or some other graphics format if consistency is what you seek.

 

[gauchogolfer]

Thanks IJ.
For the moment I'm exporting as .png from Illustrator, for all of my pdfs, just to be on the safe side. It's a pain, but worth the short-term headache I guess.