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Łukasz28868812twrk
Known Participant
November 22, 2023
Question

Wierd issue with font rendering

  • November 22, 2023
  • 5 replies
  • 679 views

Hi,

 

I weird problem with fonts in indesign book I created. On my computer everything seems fine, on amazon preview everything seems fine but when I ordered proof print it has unprinted polygons in some places. What can cause it? And how I can fix it before final publishing?

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    5 replies

    James Gifford—NitroPress
    James Gifford—NitroPress
    Legend
    November 22, 2023

    I can't tell from your post exactly what's going on — although the pictures help, thanks for including those!

     

    KDP print quality is usually good to very good, but first proofs seem to be run on a different system from production copies and I do have some proofs here with evident print faults. I have enough experience across the board to know when a problem is likely just a printing flaw on that copy and when it's something that will be a persistent problem, so I haven't worried about these glitches and have never had production copies from KDP be a problem.

     

    The only think I can think of is that the font for that title is somehow flawed and not reproducing well from KDP's RIP (the system that processes input files to print). Is it a standard commercial font, or something downloaded from a free-font site, or what?

     

    The other cause could be that you've reduced that title layout to outlines, which is a unnecessary process that can cause all kinds of downstream errors. Is that title page set in fonts on the InDesign page? Or is it an imported graphic of some kind? And have you done any kind of font outlining, at the PDF stage or elsewhere?

    Ł
    Łukasz28868812twrkAuthor
    Known Participant
    November 22, 2023

    Thank you for your response. It is I suppose a pretty standard font (Montserrat Black) but I do not remember where I downloaded it from I think it was Google Fonts, it is also available in adobe fonts so it should not cause problems like this. I had a similar issue with this font with a different print house than Amazon. It was not outlined at any stage.

    James Gifford—NitroPress
    James Gifford—NitroPress
    Legend
    November 22, 2023

    Monster-rot. It always seems to be Monster-rot. (But I use it myself, mostly on web sites...)

     

    It may be a mismatch between your library fonts and KDP's, with one of you using the Google version and the other using another. There seem to be several iterations out there, from Google out to cheap free-font versions.

     

    I'd clean out your fonts, download a complete new set of Monster... Montserrat, and do a complete type replacement in your book. Go with the Adobe set if it's accessible to you. It shouldn't take long using the Replace Fonts feature, although you might have to page through to make sure none of the layout is broken. Also, I would NOT subset the fonts when they're collected into the PDF.

     

    And, it's still possible it's just an artifact of KDP's cheap-print workflow. 🙂

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