Hi Aaron,

Thanks for your response. I tried so many different things that I can’t really remember what my final steps for success were! But, I was able to use Acrobat Pro to compare the pdf settings of my variables and finally got rid of the ICC color profile.

In Acrobat Pro I went to “Print Production” then went to “Convert Colors” and clicked on “Color Spaces” to check them.

I didn’t actually convert anything there, but I was able to see through trial and error that ICC was gone in the “Color Spaces” box.

Not sure that’s helpful for your curiosity but I was not able to get Indd to behave as described here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/flattening-transparent-artwork.html