Characters all garbled in pdf (Safari-related?)

Question

I recently switched from Adobe CS6 to Adobe CC. I typeset a journal published online as pdf files and before the switch there were no problems with the files. Now that the first issue was published, I have been contacted by several readers that the files are unreadable and unprintable as the letters are all garbled, some have smileys, some squares, some simply missing letters. The browser that causes the problem (that I know of at least) is Safari. That is also the case with my mac (10.12.4): in Chrome everything appears to be well but in my desktop Safari (10.1) not, instead in my iPad it reads just fine. No problems with PCs, at least none I know of. When I download the garbled pdf on the desktop, it appears to be fine. The pdf's are published in PHP's Open Journal System, but I don't think that's the where the problem lies as it's all garbled letters also in pdfs sent via email and opened in Safari.

I make the files in InDesign and export them with High Quality preset (tried also PDF/A, same result).

The only difference in typesetting since updating to CC is that one particular font I've used is no longer available to me. It is not included in the Typekit so I have changed that font into Avenir Next and Avenir Next Condensed by replacing the missing font everywhere it has occurred. In trying to detect where the problem might be, I have preflighted the pdfs and apparently, for some reason I just don't get, the font-preflight says that the font name Avenir Medium is not unique (below). For some reason all occurrences of Avenir Next Medium are separate fonts. That is, all those bits that were previous in the font that is no longer available to me.

I don't know if this is the source of the problem, but it's the only where there seems to be a problem. Is there a way to fix this?

Or is the problem Safari-related? If it is, how could that be fixed?

I will greatly appreciate any help you can give to me. I have struggled with this since Thursday and just haven't managed to figure it out. Perhaps I haven't been looking into the right place in trying to detect the problem.

Greg Lowitz · Answer

I'm having a similar PDF-rendering issue. In my case, I'm seeing (in Safari) that the header portion of our PDF isn't rendering correctly at the top of the page when viewing a PDF in the browser window. However, if I download the document and/or view it in a different PDF interpreter, it looks fine, so I don't think the PDF is broken. This is version 1.7, but I tried it with earlier versions may as far back as 1.4 and see the same issue. I was also able to duplicate this on my iPhone using Safari as well. I did a quick test on the desktop with Chrome under the same situation and do not see the problem.

Now, what's really strange is that if the internet connection is just a tiny bit slow for whatever reason or there is a slight delay connecting to the server (even just a split second), I can see it download correctly for about a second -- and then suddenly, the correct-looking fonts get all wacky. Once I even saw the weird colored characters like shown above. Although my situation is related to previewing PDFs from BOX, however, I don't believe this is a Box-issue per-se, it really feels like something broke in how Safari interprets PDFs. I never had this problem until fairly recently (although I can't trace it do a particular update that I recall). See example here. To duplicate the issue, you CANNOT be logged into Box, otherwise the native Box PDF interpreter will render it correctly. It's only when you're viewing the document in preview mode using whatever rendering engine is used when not logged in (maybe something native in Safari?). Here's a link to an example file with the problem (a different file than what's shown below, but it happens on every file we make).

To summarize how to try and repeat this issue:

1) Use a MAC running a latest version of Mac OS and Safari (Mine at the time of the test was 10.1.1 Safari and OS X 10.12.5.

2) Click on the blue link below. It should take you to a preview of the PDF (which you can also download later by clicking the download button to compare the file). If you happen to be a BOX user, make sure your a truly LOGGED OUT of your Box account -- because if you are logged in, it will take you into your Box account directly, and open up their PDF viewer, which renders it correctly.

3) Pay attention to the logo and the text (font) next to the QR code...and see if it looks weird (thin font all bunched up together). Note that the text next to the QR Code should be the same bold font used elsewhere in the text body which renders OK.

4) Also, try it a few times and see if it looks OK at first as it's opening up in the browser, and then suddenly it changes before your eyes to this weird look....and it stays that way. Again, downloading the actual PDF is OK. Works fine and looks OK in Acrobat and Apple Preview.

This issue is really making me nuts. Never seen it until recently. Something's broken somewhere, or tickling a mismatch between the PDF itself and that latest Safari browsers. I have not tested with Firefox, but Chrome seems OK on a quick sanity check.

I welcome any feedback on whether you're able to reproduce this experience. I've tried it on a few different MACs and all show the same issue, so it's not my computer per-se. Thanks in advance for any ideas.

https://buildera.app.box.com/v/data-sheet-crackmon-4020a

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