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ibcrosby
Participant
August 29, 2014
Question

Adobe Caslon Pro generates enormous PDF files on Mac Word, displays incorrectly on Word for Windows

  • August 29, 2014
  • 1 reply
  • 1300 views

Had a terrible experience trying to typeset my first document with Adobe Caslon Pro in Word. In Word Mac, 27 page all text document rendered to 70 MB PDF with Opentype features enabled, well under a megabyte with Opentype features disabled in compatibility settings for the same font. Opening same document in Word for Windows (both 2010 and 2013) displayed with incorrect (increased) line spacing and Opentype features (e.g. ligatures) disabled even though they were enabled in compatibility setting (they showed up when I opened the same document in Mac).

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    1 reply

    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    August 29, 2014

    Something definitely doesn't sound right here.

    We are not aware of any problems using Adobe Caslon Pro with Microsoft Word 2011 on the Macintosh.

    Attached is a sample Word document that I created using Word 2011 (with all latest updates from Microsoft), four styles of Adobe Caslon Pro with all OpenType features enabled.

    I created a PDF file using “save as PDF” from Word's own “save” dialog, also attached.

    I also created a PDF file from the “print” dialog using the “save as Adobe PDF” function (lower left corner of the dialog box), also attached.

    In terms of functionality, I don't see the problems you are experiencing. The only difference between the generic PDF and the Adobe PDF appear to be optimization of the fonts embedded in the PDF files.

    In terms of cross-platform compatibility, with Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, forget about it. Font handling is problematic when you go beyond simple typography and fonts that have only four faces - regular, italic, bold, and bold italic. The cross-platform compatibility problems really have nothing to do with Adobe fonts themselves.

              - Dov

    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    I
    ibcrosbyAuthor
    Participant
    August 29, 2014

    Thanks Dov. On further investigation I don't think this problem was specific to Caslon Pro, though it is most evident with it. When I changed the font from Caslon Pro to Times New Roman, the generated file went form 70MB to 25MB, which is still huge given that it was only 25 pages of text, but in either font was under a MB with Opentype off. It may have something to do with the file having first been created as a .DOC by a coworker, then being converted to .DOCX by me, processed for "compatibility" (hah!), and having Opentype at that point turned on. Just another Word bug I guess.

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