Mangled fonts in PDF output: how to fix?

[ashtontreadway]

Hi:

We're using Open Sans in our documentation, and I am having an issue that none of my coworkers can replicate. When I generate any PDF target for any of our products, I get output that looks like this:

font-trouble.PNG

It looks like somewhere in the generation process, the character spacing is getting mangled. I see this whether I use the target to generate output or if I use print-to-PDF on an actual topic file.

According to Acrobat, the Open Sans fonts are embedded in the PDF file. The Flare application is happily using the Open Sans fonts. Previewing a topic from Flare shows a correctly-rendered PDF.

My coworkers, using the same Flare version on the same Windows platform, are able to generate correct-looking PDFs from the same projects.

Here's what I've tried:

• Removing Acrobat Reader
• Installing Acrobat Pro
• Uninstalling and reinstalling Flare
• Uninstalling and reinstalling the Open Sans fonts
• Forcing embedding of the entire Open Sans family in Acrobat settings

Any ideas what's causing this, and, more importantly, how I can fix it? I'm starting to get into "reinstall Windows" territory, which is just ridiculous.

[ashtontreadway]

As it turns out, this is because of bad interaction between Windows 7's magnify feature and PDF generation:

http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... Output.htm

A bit of a roof pig, but that's Windows for you, I guess.

[Jeanne_W]

For what it's worth, this also happened to me on Windows 10, and the steps in the link above resolved it. Not great since this means I need to change my display settings each time before I generate a PDF, but at least it's a solution.

[EBergman]

This happened to me as well. It started working when I moved to a new computer (both were running Windows 10).