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Question

InDesign export is changing imported PDF

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
February 22, 2025
4 replies
566 views

For years, we've been creating charts in Infogram, exporting as PDF, and importing them into our InDesign reports. The exporting the full report as an Interactive PDF.

Just last month, when I export our final report, it has been changing the tracking in the source lines. The charts are perfect when viewed in Acrobat, they're perfect in the Indesign preview, and they're perfect when opened in Illustrator (not only that, but the fonts are OUTLINED(!). However, type is bunching up as though it was tracked too tight during the export.

The font is Roboto, and it's active on my system.

I am BAFFLED by this! Has anyone seen this?

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@karens51263311

Can you sshare some of the "bad" PDFs?

Please click my nickname if you prefer to send it privately.

Joel Cherney

Community Expert

Perhaps some setting changed? Although I've gone through every export option and can't find anything different.

I can't recall seeing anything like this before created by placing a PDF in InDesign. It does look like the output from e.g. old Crystal Reports PDF exports when you tried to edit or deconstruct their PDFs for recreation elsewhere.

Do you still have 19.x installed? Can you try it there? It sounds like the timing is lined up to imply that this is a result of your update to 20.x, but it's also technically possible that something that changed about the way PDFs are made in Infogram. If it works fine in 19.x, that implicates the 20.x update as the cause.

Can you share a PDF from Infogram that reproduces the error? Free accounts at Infogram apparently can't download PDF exports, so I can't make my own to try to reproduce your issue.

How do you have Roboto installed? Is it from fonts.adobe.com, or installed by some other font management tool, or did you drop a file into a Fonts folder?

karens51263311Author

Participating Frequently

Joel, thank you SO much for your thoughtful comments. Yes, your Crystal Reports comment is spot-on. (Strangely, the Infogram exports are all 100% fine... it's only when that PDF is re-exported as part of a longer report that the problem arises.) I'm going to go back to the team who create the charts, and sit with them while they create a custom set for troubleshooting. I'll also re-export old examples in 20.x, and export these new ones in 19.x. Will also get all users to confirm Roboto is installed through Adobe fonts. Thanks again for your help.

Joel Cherney

Community Expert

I didn't dig too deeply into Infogram, but I'm pretty confident that their backend is creating PDFs that are going to be in some way Weird. In the past, when I had to deal with Weird PDFs from JasperReports, my solution was to automate the process of spitting high-res TIFFs out of Acrobat to replace the problematic charts-and-graphs PDFs. That kind of workflow adjustment to patch around malfunctioning PDF export might be faster for you than 1) proving that something has changed in InDesign regarding handling of placed PDFs, and 2) submitting a bug report, and then 3) hoping to get a fix in the next dot release. But it neatly sidesteps the question of how InDesign is interpreting a placed PDF generated from Who Knows What Library Infogram Used in building their product.

Don't spend too much time investigating how Roboto is installed, though. My initial questions presupposed that you were doing this yourself, on your machine, and I didn't intuit that the "we" in your initial post represented a population of "all users." Because the fonts that are ostensibly embedded in your Infogram PDF shouldn't collide with your installation of Roboto, without regard to how it was installed. But if it was easy for you on your desktop to disable Roboto, that's one of the expermiments I would have suggested, further down the line.

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

It happens, when you open a PDF in Illustrator and save it in Illustrator and then close it.

Only PDFs created in Illustrator with an AI fork are allowed to open in Illustrator as Illustrator is NOT a common PDF editor.

karens51263311Author

Participating Frequently

To clarify: I did not edit the chart in Illustrator, I only opened the PDF to inspect it, and confirm which font was used to create it. I was very surprised to see the font was outlined.

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

Open and probably save will cause damage. Don't open if in Illustrator. To check PDFs usa Acrobat Pro , print production > preflight. That is the program for that purpose.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

What platform, OS and InDesign versions?

Have you updated OS or InDesign before the problem occurred?

karens51263311Author

Participating Frequently

Mac Sonoma 14.0, InDesign 20.1.

And yes, InDesign had its update in January. Perhaps some setting changed? Although I've gone through every export option and can't find anything different.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

Mac Sonoma 14.0, InDesign 20.1.

And yes, InDesign had its update in January. Perhaps some setting changed? Although I've gone through every export option and can't find anything different.

By @karens51263311

The change doesn't have to be visible in the UI - it might be a new bug?

Or a "fix" that now works "correctly" - is creating an unwanted side effect...

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