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V
VickiP14
Participant
April 11, 2020
Question

"Fi" and "Fl" missing in edit mode

  • April 11, 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 4469 views

I frequently print to pdf from the internet. When I edit those documents in Adobe, words that start with "fi" or "fl" drop those two letters and the lines go half a line out of alignment. I can copy everything after the word that starts with "fi" or "fl", retype the word before it and the word that starts with "fi" or "fl" and then paste the rest of the content back in and the issue is resolved. Typically, the font that is printed from the internet isn't a font that exists in Adobe. I have tried just changing the font of the content but that doesn't resolve it. I also checked the font color to make sure the letters aren't just hiding in white. The letters are there in the original print. 

Any thoughts as to why I have the issue to begin with? I'm on a Microsoft Surface Pro laptop with Windows 10 but the same thing happened on my Lenovo Thinkpad, Windows 7 and 10.

3 replies

ls_rbls
Community Expert
ls_rblsCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 12, 2020

Hey Bevi and Dov,

 

I asked about the web browser because the user mention printing to PDF from the Internet. I may infer by that statement that when the user is on a webpage is either right-clicking on the web page, selecting Print and then print as PDF.

 

However, would you agree if by adding the Adobe Acrobat extension (currently supported in the new Micrososft Edge, Chrome and Firebox) would circumvent this issue?

 

Here's the link for the user: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/enable-createpdf-extension-chrome.html

 

I was going to suggest this option to the  user because the Adobe Acrobat extension has these built-in options that, instead of printing directly to PDF from a PDF-viewing-enabled browser, there are HTML to PDF conversion settings in the Preferences that actually allows to change Fonts to more ADA compliant fonts (i.e Arial).

 

 

ls_rbls
Community Expert
ls_rblsCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 12, 2020

Here are some slides:

 

This is not necessary, but On the webpage that you're trying to print you can open it in your browser in developer mode (hit F12 key):

 

 

 

Below is the results following this Adobe guidance: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/converting-web-pages-pdf.html

 

 

This web page was converted to PDF using the Adobe Acrobat extension in Internet Explorer 11

 

 

 

This was converted to PDF using the Adobe Acrobat extension in Chrome web browser.

 

 

NOTE: NOT PERFECT BUT IN MY OPINION VERY GOOD ADD-ON AND I LOVE IT!

 

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Legend
April 12, 2020

"fi" and "fl" are common ligatures where the letters are combined into one glyph to improve the appearance and readability of the text. To see a sample, view https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/ligatures   and scroll to the end where the fl ligature is demonstrated.

 

The problem you describe can happen when the website uses a font with ligatures and your computer doesn't have the matching font or one with ligatures to substitute.

 

The solution is for the website designer to get their act together and not use such things as ligatures. They're a helpful font technology for professionally design documents for printing, but not for websites and other digital media.

 

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Legend
    April 12, 2020

    One more idea:

    When printing from the website, check your "print to PDF" options to see if you can embed the fonts into the PDF. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't due to copyright issues.

     

    |    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
    V
    VickiP14Author
    Participant
    April 12, 2020

    Bevi,

    I don't know what you mean by embedding the font. Can you explain what you mean by that?

    Thank you!

    ls_rbls
    Community Expert
    ls_rblsCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 11, 2020

    Hi,

     

    What web browser are you using?

    V
    VickiP14Author
    Participant
    April 12, 2020

    I'm using Chrome. To speak to one of your other replies, I am hitting a print button on the webpage (they are recipes and they print to a lot of pages. I like to reformat to get it down to 2 at a max). In looking through the settings for Adobe PDF printer, I went to Printer Properties-->Advanced-->Print Processor and changed the Default Data Type to TEXT. This worked but the setting doesn't stay. It goes back to RAW.

    ls_rbls
    Community Expert
    ls_rblsCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 12, 2020

    Well, one option is like I suggessted with the extension.

     

    In MS Windows, using Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer it allows to print sections of a web page instead of the converting the whole website to a PDF document.

     

    But if your method is  working, Are you setting this up through the control panel for the Adobe PDF Converter driver? 

     

    If so, right-click on it and select "Set as defualt printer"  Would that help?

     

    If that doesn't do anything restart the spooler service. From what I read the spooler service will expect print processing calls from the prior configuration you had, so a manual restart of the print spooler may resolve this.

     

     

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