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Participant
November 8, 2018
Answered

One of my fonts not in bold when making a PDF

  • November 8, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 51860 views

Hi,

I have a problem that is driving me nuts. Just one font of mine will not convert to PDF in bold. It is Futura Standard. Everything else from the Word document converts and it used to do so for me in the past.

I recently got a new computer and upgraded to the latest version of Word. No matter what I do - either using Word's own PDF making tool, using Acrobat X Pro or using a rival PDF tool - the result is always the same and this one font won't show up as bold when I convert.

For continuity I need it to match previous PDFs I've made in the past and this has been driving me crazy for days now. Any help much appreciated.

Correct answer Dov Isaacs

Are you sure you actually have a bold version of Futura Standard installed on your system. Regrettably, Word (and other Microsoft Office documents) allow for faux embolding. If you don't have an actual bold version of a font installed, Office will make believe that you do have such a font installed and artificially embolden it within the application if you select the bold attribute. Similarly, if you select the italic attribute, Office will oblique the regular style to simulate italic.

This might be the source of your problem.

          - Dov

2 replies

October 3, 2019

For some fonts, when bolded, they do not appear as such in pdf format. It may be that you converted to Pdf format by clicking "save as" followed by selecting "pdf format"

 

you CAN rectify this by doing the following:

- on the MS word, ctrl+P, to print 

- then select the "Microsoft word to PDF" & click "Print"

MS word will saved as a pdf format in your DOCUMENT. 

Open the pdf; there is a higher chance of the format showing your bolded font

 

Another way

- have a pdf software (e.g. adobe, foxit, ...) installed in your computer. I use foxit reader

- ctrl+P on MS word, followed by selecting "foxit reader pdf printer" or ??"adobe reader pdf printer". then click print.

Pdf opens automatically showing you the bolded fonts

 

HOPE THESE OPTIONS HELP

Participant
December 16, 2023

print to pdf works, but it doesnt maintain hyperlinks

Participant
November 28, 2024

OHMYGOSH, this is exactly my problem using a google font,, Outfit. My options are save as PDF and lose the bold font but keep active hyperlinks OR print to PDF and keep the bold font but lose active hyperlinks. I have Windows11 and use Microsoft 365. If memory serves, this problem was NOT a problem several months ago. But I cannot say that for certain.

Dov Isaacs
Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
Legend
November 8, 2018

Are you sure you actually have a bold version of Futura Standard installed on your system. Regrettably, Word (and other Microsoft Office documents) allow for faux embolding. If you don't have an actual bold version of a font installed, Office will make believe that you do have such a font installed and artificially embolden it within the application if you select the bold attribute. Similarly, if you select the italic attribute, Office will oblique the regular style to simulate italic.

This might be the source of your problem.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
CaptainevAuthor
Participant
November 9, 2018

Hi Dov,

Many thanks indeed for such a quick reply. You might be onto something. It was actually Futura Standard Medium with Bold selected in Word that I was using. I can see from my list of fonts that although there is a Futura Standard Medium Oblique there is no Futura Standard Medium Bold.

Selecting Futura Standard Book (a very similar font) and using Bold it does work in a PDF - even though there is no Futura Standard Book Bold in my list of fonts. This might do for me as it's close enough but I'm just curious about what is happening. Before upgrading Word I used to be able to convert a bold version of Futura Standard Medium and now I can't.

Thank you for your help though.