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BenofOld
BenofOld
Participating Frequently
July 9, 2026
Question

Font not rendering as expected

  • July 9, 2026
  • 4 replies
  • 31 views

I’m resurrecting an old book for reprint from files created in 2000. It included a few Type 1 fonts, which I’ve had to upgrade (creating minor text reflow issues, but generally not bad). But one font, DIN 30640 Std Neutzeit Grotesk Bold Cond.otf seems fine on screen, but renders in a PDF/X-1a:2001 rather fat. Not obviously “faux bold” but just thicker than it should be, and thicker than its screen appearance. Say 15%.

The former font this new DIN is replacing is “DIN Condensed Bold.ttf” (©1981, 2002). When I found out about the font issue, I acquired the new DIN font, and chose to disable the old one via Font Book. I see that the macOS placed it in this directory: [drive]>System>Library>Fonts>Supplemental.

The new font was installed by Font Book into: [drive]>User>[username]>Library>Fonts.
(I’ve never quite understood font & system file locations under OSX, though I get the idea of unix-based user-specific directories.)

The old font is not available in Font Book (grayed out, “Off”). I want to trust Font Book, but I wonder if there is any way that the old font is interfering in the creation of my .pdf where it looks odd, or is somehow only influencing my own OS screen renders when I look at it on my MacBook Pro, but it will be fine in the (offsite) pro printer’s workflow. Was there a problem in the order in which I installed the new one and disabled the old (don’t recall, but may have disabled the old AFTER installing the new)?

I believe the “thinner” look to be the more accurate because I have a hard copy of the book, as printed in 2001, to compare to, and my memory for font looks is pretty reliable. Which is why I cocked my head when I saw the thick render in my output .pdf (from InDesign 20.5.4, as I am running a 2015 MBP under Monterey).

FYI, this is not the same machine or system under which the original document/book was created, of course. That was in 2000 & 2001. And it was done in QuarkXPress 3.31. I used InDesign to bring that old file forward, and still had a lot of work to do to clean it up.

Thoughts?

    4 replies

    BenofOld
    BenofOldAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    July 13, 2026

    Bobby, thanks for your response.

    Is the font embedded? With InDesign’s Save As DPF, who can tell? I jest. The Save As PDF function simply offers that I can choose the percentage of characters used below which it will “Subset fonts,” and offers, “All fonts with appropriate embedding bits will be embedded.” Yes, it’s embedded, not subsetted, and not outlined.

    I think you’re on to something about the source. In the process of researching the resurrection of this book, from ancient files, I quickly realized the Type 1 fonts had to be replaced. I don’t recall where I found the (presumably) Type 1 version of this font that I used back in 2000. But searching for this resurrection, I found that Adobe does not offer this particular weight (“DIN 30640 Std Neuzeit Grotesk Bold Cond”)—Adobe Fonts only offers 6 fonts in the family, the closest of which is not that close to what I used ‘back in the day.’

    The naming concerns me a bit. WTAF is meant by “Std” in a font name? Standard? Sexually transmitted disease? And putting that together with “Bold Condensed” seems fraught with confusion. But that’s just me.

    At this late stage, I think I have to accept what I’m getting, which—at least on screen, we’re awaiting a digital proof, followed later by a hard copy—appears to be a font that’s about 15-20% fatter in its pdf render than it is in the InDesign layout render. And the layout more closely matches the original printed copies of the book that I have. Sigh. 

    BenofOld
    BenofOldAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    July 13, 2026

    Sorry, I meant to say the full font name I used above is the naming from the online source I ended up using, FontsGeek. It’s an OTF which, interestingly, in the Get Info on the font file, bears Adobe and Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG copyrights from long ago….

     

    B
    Community Expert
    Bobby HendersonCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 13, 2026

    Adobe distributed a DIN Neuzeit Grotesk Bold Condensed Type 1 font back in the 1990's. The font name didn't include those "30640" numbers in the font name. It's as if someone took the Type 1 font files and made some alterations.

    Numerous type companies have made DIN style fonts. The style goes back to lettering used on German highway signs. There's fonts like DIN Engschrift, DIN Mittelschrift and (of course) DIN Neuzeit. The type company Font Font released an expansive re-make of DIN twenty some odd years ago. Font Font was among many companies acquired by Monotype. Some of those FF DIN fonts are available now via Adobe Fonts.

    The "Std" trend being added to font names is something I think Adobe started when the OpenType font format started appearing around 25 years ago. "Std" is short for standard. Some fonts would have "Pro" added to the names. The old Type 1 format had a limit of 256 glyphs per font file. A type family would need numerous additional "expert set" font files to add features like native small capitals, ligatures, dingbats, etc. OpenType font files can have up to 65,535 glyphs. All of those expert features can be included in the same font file. OTF files with the word "Pro" in the name would often have additional features. Not everyone is consistent in using those "std" vs "pro" naming conventions; I've seen plenty of "std" OTF fonts include lots of additional features anyway.

    B
    Community Expert
    Bobby HendersonCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 9, 2026

    Is the "DIN 30640 Std Neutzeit Grotesk" font embedding into the PDF file or is the text being converted to outlines? It should be easy to determine viewing the PDF in Adobe Acrobat. You'll see a text cursor when hovering over live text objects while outlined text objects won't be select-able. Text objects that are outlined can look a bit strange in PDF files; some file-size-saving tricks can be done to objects. For instance, a rectangle shape may be converted to a stroked line.

    Technical issues could be related to the quality of the font file itself. I'm familiar with lots of DIN-style fonts, but not the version you're using. If the font file is from a free fonts web site odds are higher it would have technical problems.

    Adobe Fonts has a number of DIN-style type families that work pretty well as far as I can tell. There's DIN 2014 and DIN Condensed from Paratype, URW's version of DIN and FF DIN Paneuropean. Those all work pretty well. One of them may cover the DIN style used in your original document better than the font you're currently using.

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