Old-style Caslon numerals in Word are randomly altered to lining numerals when printing or creating a PDF

[Auntiquarian]

I am experiencing a similar problem to that described here: Old style numerals problem when creating PDFs from Word files

namely when I try to print out a Word document which uses old-style Caslon numerals or create a PDF of it, some of the numerals are converted into lining figures. This problem appears to be independent of the printer, computer, or application used. I have tried creating PDFs in Word, Adobe Acrobat, and Acrobat Pro, and have experienced the same problem.

[Test Screen Name]

What all of these seem to have in common is the one app Word. The fact that it happens when printing from Word clearly shows it isn't a PDF problem. If Word is getting confused, no change to the other things used is going to help. I suggest a Microsoft forum, but expect a lot of explaining what old style numerals are.

[Auntiquarian]

Yes, I think you're right, and I think the previous sufferer posted a query on a Microsoft forum without success. I don't think the problem is likely to be solved by MS for some time.

I should have thought that Adobe would take an interest, though, as I understand that they were involved in developing OpenType fonts and the Adobe Caslon Pro font is presumably licenced to Microsoft on the understanding that they would make it work in their applications properly.

Many thanks for your answer, though.

[Test Screen Name]

What makes you say that the font is licensed to Microsoft? I can't think of any reason to believe this, nor that if they did, that Microsoft would accept any such condition.

[Auntiquarian]

I expect I do not understand the situation. One of the fonts available in Word (in Office 2016) is Adobe Caslon Pro, which I assumed was developed by Adobe, and I further assumed that Adobe must have come to some arrangement (perhaps licensing isn't the right word) for Microsoft to make it available in their software. If an Adobe font doesn't work properly in MS Word I should have thought Adobe would at least want to make a note of it. But I understand this is probably based on some ignorant assumptions. Best wishes.

[Test Screen Name]

The fonts "available in Word" are the fonts "available in Windows". Windows lets you install fonts from the millions available. You can then use them in Word. Doesn't mean Microsoft had anything to do with it. I imagine you got the font with some Adobe app or other, if you didn't buy it.

You will see from the post you referenced that an Adobe staff member, particularly knowledgable on fonts,  did a significant number of tests on the fonts with Word and could not reproduce the problem.

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

For the record, Adobe hasn't “licensed” Adobe Caslon Pro to Microsoft for any purpose. And OpenType is not an Adobe font format. It was developed by a combination of Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, and others.

And since the anomalies using Adobe Caslon in Word apparently occur even when no Adobe software (including the Acrobat PDFMaker feature and printing to the Adobe PDF PostScript printer driver instance) is involved all points to “issues” associated with how Word interacts with particular features of OpenType fonts.

We have heard of a number of “issues” associated with Microsoft Office products interacting with Adobe Caslon Pro, often associated with Microsoft's code making some strange and invalid assumptions and applying same when using complex OpenType fonts such as Adobe Caslon Pro. One such symptom is exaggerated line spacing unless you explicitly specify line spacing (i.e., exact points, not single or double or triple spacing). In this particular case, Microsoft was basing standard single spacing amounts based on the vertical dimensions of the largest glyph in the font, an approach that simply doesn't work when dealing with fonts with large, symbolic glyphs in addition to alphabetic and numeric characters.

That having been said, I did investigate the situation described in Old style numerals problem when creating PDFs from Word files and responded to that thread. We couldn't reproduce the problem with the most updated version of Word at that time. Make sure all updates are applied and if necessary, contact Microsoft Technical Support. It is clearly their issue to fix if the problem has reappeared after having been fixed.

          - Dov