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karenc70559526
Participant
September 9, 2017
Answered

PDF file has overlapping charactres

  • September 9, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 34846 views

I have an enterprise application that generates reports and one option is to export the report to PDF. The resulting PDFs, when viewed in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC sometimes have overlapping characters. Any ideas on what causes this and how to resolve it?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Dov Isaacs

There are several possibilities here:

(1)     The program that generated the PDF file did not embed the fonts referenced by the text in the PDF file. As such, especially if fonts other than Helvetica, Times, Arial, Courier, etc. are used, the substitution fonts may not be able to adequately emulate the original font.

(2)     In conjunction with (1) above, if the PDF creation software didn't properly generate font information for the non-embedded fonts, the widths and spacings used when substituting fonts may be very “off” from what is visually pleasing or correct.

          - Dov

2 replies

D
defaultblsz8kk5krsd
Participant
July 13, 2021

Hi, 

I'm  having problems with letters overlapping when I open a file in Adobe reader. Please is there a fix for that.

 

Thank you!

try67
Community Expert
try67Community Expert
Community Expert
July 14, 2021

You need to provide more information, and possibly a sample file.

D
defaultblsz8kk5krsd
Participant
July 14, 2021

Hi, 

 

Here is a sample image. All the users is the company show overlapping letters when opened with Adobe. When they open the file in Edge it shows fine.

 

Let me know what kind of information you will need.

 

Thanks!

Dov Isaacs
Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
Legend
September 10, 2017

There are several possibilities here:

(1)     The program that generated the PDF file did not embed the fonts referenced by the text in the PDF file. As such, especially if fonts other than Helvetica, Times, Arial, Courier, etc. are used, the substitution fonts may not be able to adequately emulate the original font.

(2)     In conjunction with (1) above, if the PDF creation software didn't properly generate font information for the non-embedded fonts, the widths and spacings used when substituting fonts may be very “off” from what is visually pleasing or correct.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    A
    Arik Levi
    Participant
    March 31, 2021

    Thanks Dov,

    Is there an easy fix to view such documents ?

    I've downloaded an eBook and it's hard to read it due to this issue.

    Can a font change in Adobe Reader help in this case? is there a way to force Adobe Reader to regenerate it properly

    ? 

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