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A
auxiliaryjoel
Inspiring
May 30, 2018
Question

Fonts change case and lose correct kerning when Acrobat optimises PDFs

  • May 30, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 936 views

Hi whenever I save PDFs from inside Acrobat, out to an optimised version, or a 'reduced size' version, the fonts change spacing horribly, and headings that were ALL caps, change to random upper and lower characters.

I've checked and the original (correct appearance) PDFs have the fonts embedded. I've also checked the Optimisation settings and the Fonts are being set to remain embedded.

So what on earth is happening?

    3 replies

    R
    raz_van_b
    Participant
    May 29, 2025

    Hello, 

     

    I am having the exact same issue described above. This has happened for a large multi-lingual document where I have added multiple text boxes translating existing text. How would I revert back to having prior existing text in all caps, as it was?

     

    Re-exporting from source is not an option, because I'd then need to re-add my translations on hundreds of pages.

     

    The fonts used are variants of Arial and Helvetica and show as "subset embedded" - so should be widely available.

     

    Extra detail: for some reason, some of the text boxes are fragmented some are in one piece, but it also looks like the words have spaces inside them. See screenshot: you can notice fragmented and whole text boxes, with spaces inside the words.

     

    This is on Acrobat 2025.001.20474 64bit (latest as of today) and Windows 11 (latest update as of today).

     

    Thank you in advance,

    Raz

    A
    auxiliaryjoelAuthor
    Inspiring
    November 7, 2018

    Hi Anand, the version of Acrobat I'm running is:

    Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

    2019.008.20080

    AnandSri
    Community Manager
    AnandSriCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    August 22, 2018

    Hi Auxiliaryjoel,

    We're sorry for the trouble you had while optimizing the PDF using Adobe Acrobat. What is the current dot version of Acrobat installed? To identify, refer to Identify the product and its version for Acrobat and Reader DC

    Is it a Mac or Windows machine and what is the version?

    Make sure that you have the latest version of Adobe Acrobat installed, check for any pending updates from help>check for updates.

    As you mentioned that the Fonts are embedded, the issue could be that the fonts were embedded in the original file and when you optimized it, the fonts embedding was removed. Make sure that the original file does have the fonts embedded, and On the Optimized PDF, make sure that "Do not unembed any font" and "Subset all embedded fonts" options are checked.

    Redo the optimize and make sure that the fonts are kept in the PDF.

    What was the producer of the original PDF? Check under the General tab of the document properties.

    It may be the fonts in the original PDF were not licensed for embedding and Acrobat removed the embedded fonts for licensing reasons.

    Is it possible to share the PDF file with us so that we can test it at our end? To share the file, please use Adobe Send feature, login to https://cloud.acrobat.com/send using your Adobe ID(email) and password, upload the file, share the link to files via private message only, How Do I Send Private Message

    Let us know how it goes and share your observation.

    Thanks,

    Anand Sri.

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