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RuDizzle88
Participant
September 13, 2019
Answered

Font Encoding settings - Removing Identity-H encoding

  • September 13, 2019
  • 4 replies
  • 48102 views

Hi all,

 

I use a Mail Merge function daily to print letters in Bulk from Microsoft Word using Adobe PDF.

 

As soon as I changed laptops (went from Windows 7 to Windows 10) the Fonts in the PDF's are now encoded with "Identity-H" with a font type of  "Truetype (CID)" instead of "Truetype" with ANSI encoding which means none of the characters in the address box can be read by Bing Mailroom in order to extract the address text and mail them out in bulk.

 

I've spent a couple of days trying to fix it and playing around with all the relevant settings/preferences in Adobe PDF, Distiller and Word but nothing seems to work.

 

Any ideas?

      Correct answer Dov Isaacs

      There is no method of eliminating use of CID Identity-H encoding when creating PDF files. Such encoding is perfectly valid per the PDF specification. It is often used when large character sets are used or non-ASCII characters are referenced. There are absolutely no settings in any Adobe preferences or options to avoid this encoding. Furthermore, any software that is attempting to interpret text within a PDF file should be able to deal with such encoding. It seems like this “Bing Mailroom” software is making very poor assumptions about the PDF files that it will need to interpret. You should contact that company's tech support to get a fix from them for their software.

       

      You did mention your transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10. One of the major changes that most users are not aware of is that in the transition from Windows 7 to Windows 8.x to Windows 10, the system fonts within Windows (such as Arial, Times New Roman, etc.) grew dramatically in size in terms of the numbers of glyphs defined in those fonts (to support more languages, special symbolic characters, etc.). When encountering such fonts, some if not most PDF generators will use CID Identity-H encoding. The only thing you might try is use of other fonts that are much more restricted in the number of glyphs they support, probably meaning that you may need to license fonts other than the Windows system fonts.

       

                    - Dov

      4 replies

      Cesar Cesanjjaque
      Cesar Cesanjjaque
      Participant
      April 19, 2020

      Bonjour,

      I don't understand what is the advantage of Identity-H encoding. For our caritative association, we have a small news paper of one page, since the beginning of this publication except the one page text, the fonts and the logo image was not changed and depending of the evolution of the means of creation we have 3 types of pdf files.  

      Except the size, the aspect of the pdf on screen or on printer is exactly the same !

      The 3 types are describe here :

       

      • Type 1 : size ~ 73 ko

                Creator: PDFCreator Version 1.7.3
                Producer: GPL Ghostscript 9.10
                CreationDate: Mon Oct 29 13:45:36 2016
                Pages: 1
                Encrypted: no
                File size: 73564 bytes
                Optimized: no
                PDF version: 1.4
      CalibriLight,Italic          TrueType  WinAnsi  
      CalibriLight                   TrueType  WinAnsi 
      Calibri                            TrueType  WinAnsi 
      BrushScriptMT,Italic     TrueType  WinAnsi 
      HarlowSolidItalic,Italic TrueType  WinAnsi
      Calibri,Bold                   TrueType  WinAnsi

       

       

      • Type 2 : size ~ 530 ko
        Creator: Microsoft Word 2010
        Producer: Microsoft® Word 2010
        CreationDate: Tue Nov 26 12:04:31 2019
        Pages: 1
        Encrypted: no
        File size: 524766 bytes
        Optimized: no
        PDF version: 1.5

       

      Calibri Light                      TrueType WinAnsi 
      Calibri Light CID              TrueType Identity-H 
      Calibri                                TrueType WinAnsi 
      Forte                                   TrueType WinAnsi 
      Harlow Solid Italic,Italic   TrueType WinAnsi 
      Calibri,Bold                       TrueType WinAnsi

      Calibri,Bold                       TrueType WinAnsi 
      Calibri CID                        TrueType Identity-H 
      Calibri,Bold CID               TrueType Identity-H 
      Arial                                   TrueType WinAhyugtnsi 
      Arial Rounded MT Bold    TrueType WinAnsi 
      Calibri Light,Italic              TrueType WinAnsi 
      Calibri Light,Italic CID      TrueType Identity-H 

       

      • Type 3 : size ~ 860 ko
        producer : Microsoft Print to PDF
        CreationDate: Tue Apr 14 10:47:08 2020
        Pages: 1

                Encrypted: no
                File size: 865094 bytes
                Optimized: no
               PDF version: 1.7
      CIDFont+F1 CID     TrueType Identity-H
      CIDFont+F2 CID     TrueType Identity-H
      CIDFont+F3 CID     TrueType Identity-H
      CIDFont+F4 CID     TrueType Identity-H 
      CIDFont+F5 CID     TrueType Identity-H 
      CIDFont+F6 CID     TrueType Identity-H 
      CIDFont+F7 CID     TrueType Identity-H 
      CIDFont+F8 CID     TrueType Identity-H 

       

      Is there are a solution to reduce this INVASIVEIdentity-H encoding ?

      Thank for answers !

      Bests Regards.

        Dov Isaacs
        Dov Isaacs
        Legend
        April 19, 2020

        @Cesar Cesanjjaque

         

        A few points:

         

        (1)    There is nothing “invasive” about Identity-H encoding. DIfferent PDF creators use this encoding based upon which characters in a font are actually used, typically when non-ASCII or Western Latin characters (such as any symbolic characters are used. There is no penalty in terms of your ability to view, print, search, or even edit such PDF files.

         

        (2)    There is no feature within Acrobat Pro, including within the Preflight functions, to eliminiate existing Identity-H encoding.

         

        (3)    None of the three methods of producing PDF that you give examples for are Adobe products or have anything to do with Adobe Acrobat's PDF creation capability. The second and third PDF files you reference are produced via Microsoft's tools, neither of which are highly regarded in terms of the quality or efficiency of their PDF production. You should contact Microsoft to ascertain why their PDF files are so bloated in size. It is not the CID Identity-H encoding, though!

         

        (4)    Something else is inconsistent here. Apparently different fonts are being embedded in the PDF files. There is an inconsistency well beyond what encoding is used.

         

        - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
          Dov Isaacs
          Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
          Legend
          September 15, 2019

          There is no method of eliminating use of CID Identity-H encoding when creating PDF files. Such encoding is perfectly valid per the PDF specification. It is often used when large character sets are used or non-ASCII characters are referenced. There are absolutely no settings in any Adobe preferences or options to avoid this encoding. Furthermore, any software that is attempting to interpret text within a PDF file should be able to deal with such encoding. It seems like this “Bing Mailroom” software is making very poor assumptions about the PDF files that it will need to interpret. You should contact that company's tech support to get a fix from them for their software.

           

          You did mention your transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10. One of the major changes that most users are not aware of is that in the transition from Windows 7 to Windows 8.x to Windows 10, the system fonts within Windows (such as Arial, Times New Roman, etc.) grew dramatically in size in terms of the numbers of glyphs defined in those fonts (to support more languages, special symbolic characters, etc.). When encountering such fonts, some if not most PDF generators will use CID Identity-H encoding. The only thing you might try is use of other fonts that are much more restricted in the number of glyphs they support, probably meaning that you may need to license fonts other than the Windows system fonts.

           

                        - Dov

          - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
            R
            RuDizzle88Author
            Participant
            September 16, 2019
            Hi Dov, thanks for your expertise! I've passed this through to the Bing mailroom Tech and hopefully they can identify a font which is more restrictive in the number of glyphs they support on Windows 10 which might do the trick
            ls_rbls
            Community Expert
            ls_rblsCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            September 15, 2019

            Adding to the discussion,

             

            When you tried to change settings in your adobe acrobat preferences, did you unchecked "use local fonts" option?

             

            Also, I believe it is possible to update the fonts library in both  windows and from witihin the MS Office applications.

             

            Aside from the upgrade to Windows 10 from Win7, did you also updated your Adobe Acrobat to refelct the current version?

             

            Last, if all suggestions here have failed try these recommendations too:

             

            https://community.adobe.com/t5/Acrobat/There-s-something-wrong-with-my-Adobe-PDF-viewer-it-can-t-read/m-p/10605738#M149811

             

              R
              RuDizzle88Author
              Participant
              September 16, 2019
              Yes, I've tried unchecking local fonts but that didn;t work.
              Eric Dumas
              Community Expert
              Eric DumasCommunity Expert
              Community Expert
              September 13, 2019

              Have you asked Bing Mailroom tech support if you can use a seprate set of fonts or some work around they suggest?

                R
                RuDizzle88Author
                Participant
                September 16, 2019
                Hi Eric, just done that today! As per Dov's answer above, I think we'll need to get a new font which is more restrictive in the number of glyphs they support on Windows 10. Cheers!
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