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Participant
February 6, 2015
Answered

Something fishy with Caslon Pro Bold

  • February 6, 2015
  • 1 reply
  • 639 views

Hi,

I have a weird problem with bold Caslon Pro in Word 2013. If I use "save as PDF" the numbers 0-9 turn into gibberish. Print to PDF works fine though!?

I have attached a test document caslon.docx, also save as PDF result named caslon.pdf as well as print to PDF result named caslon2.pdf.

What am I doing wrong? Please help!

Here are the files: http://adobe.ly/1C1Dois

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Dov Isaacs

This is a known problem with Microsoft's “save as PDF.”

None of the Microsoft Office applications that natively generate PDF embed any OpenType CFF fonts (i.e., OpenType fonts with Type 1 style Bezier outlines) or even properly embed the font name such that the fonts can be accessed for display and print Acrobat/Reader or embedded subsequently in Acrobat Pro with Preflight.

Although Adobe has alerted Microsoft to this problem (which also occurs in all earlier versions of Microsoft “save as PDF”), Microsoft has refused so far to fix the bug.

The workaround is very simple. Acrobat (either Standard or Pro) for Windows adds a PDFMaker facility into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook that properly generates PDF (via Save as Adobe PDF function). The fonts are properly embedded.

        - Dov

PS: There are a whole bunch of other known shortcomings of Microsoft's PDF save functionality.

1 reply

Dov Isaacs
Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
Legend
February 6, 2015

This is a known problem with Microsoft's “save as PDF.”

None of the Microsoft Office applications that natively generate PDF embed any OpenType CFF fonts (i.e., OpenType fonts with Type 1 style Bezier outlines) or even properly embed the font name such that the fonts can be accessed for display and print Acrobat/Reader or embedded subsequently in Acrobat Pro with Preflight.

Although Adobe has alerted Microsoft to this problem (which also occurs in all earlier versions of Microsoft “save as PDF”), Microsoft has refused so far to fix the bug.

The workaround is very simple. Acrobat (either Standard or Pro) for Windows adds a PDFMaker facility into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook that properly generates PDF (via Save as Adobe PDF function). The fonts are properly embedded.

        - Dov

PS: There are a whole bunch of other known shortcomings of Microsoft's PDF save functionality.

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)