I resolved a problem that has vexed us for a long time. I feel so relieved that I thought I'd share it with the forum, in case anyone else runs into it.
We have a 15" notebook with a very high res 1900x1200 display. My writer who took over this machine reset the resolution to 1680x1050 to make it more readable. She also bumped up the font to 125% of normal. Then we discovered that the PDFs produced by Flare were very odd looking: the characters were set far too wide apart--the kerning was awful. This puzzled us for a long time, as my machine, set up with the same software, fonts, and OS, produced correct-looking PDFs. I tried replacing the fonts, reinstalling Acrobat, reinstalling Flare--nothing worked. PDFs created from Word looked fine however. And there was nothing amiss in the Adobe Distiller settings.
After ignoring this issue for some months, I finally discovered that the 125% font magnification was the culprit! Evidently, this magnification caused the characters to "take up more room" when previewing the topic in Print mode in Flare, making it seem like fewer characters would fit on a line. But when the PDF was created, the actual fonts took up "less" room than the preview implied, so Flare simply spread apart the characters to match what the preview had shown!
So until MadCap addresses this problem, I urge everyone to not use the font magnification feature in Windows 7. This will cause unexpected output in PDF targets. Lowering the screen resolution seems to have no impact on the PDF though.
Nasty PDF font problem that I finally resolved
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- Sr. Propeller Head
- Posts: 134
- Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2008 11:30 am
- Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Re: Nasty PDF font problem that I finally resolved
Thank you for this.
Do you know if it's been logged as a bug?
i recently upgraded to a new computer and will deal with the microscopic text if I can manage.
Do you know if it's been logged as a bug?
i recently upgraded to a new computer and will deal with the microscopic text if I can manage.
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- Propeller Head
- Posts: 68
- Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2007 9:32 pm
- Location: Perth, Western Australia
Re: Nasty PDF font problem that I finally resolved
Many thanks for posting this. I had magnification set to 125% and was scratching my head for several days as to why the PDF outyput was different.
Someone's boring me. I think it's me.
Re: Nasty PDF font problem that I finally resolved
Oh, thank you thank you THANK YOU for posting this. I just got a new laptop, and apparently the default display setting is 125%. I spent hours trying to figure out why I could generate everything just fine on my old computer, but the new one added crazy spaces all over the place. So not happy.
Of course, now I am going to have to buy reading glasses so I can see anything on the darn screen. I wonder if I can send the bill to MadCap?
- lisa
Of course, now I am going to have to buy reading glasses so I can see anything on the darn screen. I wonder if I can send the bill to MadCap?
- lisa
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- Jr. Propeller Head
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 3:56 pm
Re: Nasty PDF font problem that I finally resolved
Has this issue been resolved? Because all of our writers are using the default display setting of 125% and we are not seeing the font-spacing issue that everyone has described. We are using Flare 8.1.2.
Re: Nasty PDF font problem that I finally resolved
How odd. Do you embed your fonts? Because if you don't you can get some of the same problems.
All life is a blur of Republicans and meat. -- Zippy the Pinhead