Preserving line spacing when converting Word to PDF using Acrobat?

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
April 19, 2017
3 replies
10557 views

I have recently noticed a problem when printing a PDF document from Word. The line spacing of the document is changed. The Microsoft Word document is set for single space, 1.15”. with “Tight” paragraph layout selected on paragraph spacing on the design tab. The document appears correct in print preview. However, after the PDF document is created .41 line space is added during the conversion. So the 1.15 line space in the Word document is a 1.56 line space in the PDF document. Consequently, lines of text are moved to another page, and the PDF no longer reflects the intended design. Additionally, should any images or tables be inserted they appear in different locations, and potentially across a page break.

I do not see any settings in Microsoft Word, or Adobe Acrobat that preserve or adjust to a default line spacing to correct or prevent this problem. This is a new problem, I have been using the same programs successfully for over a year on the same computer with the same operating system (Dell Precision, Windows 10 professional, Word 2016 Adobe Acrobat Standard DC 2015), but now there is a discrepancy.

I am not sure if anyone else has had this problem, and determined a resolution for this. I am very aware that different system settings can override a Word layout, which is precisely one of the significant values of converting it to PDF using adobe, to preserve the specific system, layout, and design settings as the document was drafted. So that two users can observe the same layout. This is frustratingly removed for some reason, my work flow, that should be the seconds it takes to convert the document, are not increased as I adjust the spacing and positions, in acrobat. Depending on document size and layout complexity, this can amount to hours.

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adam_7605

New Participant

Same issue we are having in 2024. When converting word to pdf, line spacing is a mess.

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simon_1337

New Participant

I am having the same issues but slightly different. From Word 365 to Acrobat Pro 2024, I use the Create PDF from the Word ribbon. Acrobat is able to fit more lines on a page so everything gets shifted up.
I need to let content spill over onto the next page in Word, then put a page break so that when it converts to PDF the pages are sensibly filled. Usually takes about 4-5 converts to get it just right.
Crazy that it doesn't, at the very least, look at the pages that the content is on in Word and ensure that it remains the same in a PDF conversion.

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Tariq Ahmad

Community Manager

Hi all,

Sorry for the troubled experience; I came across this discussion for the first time. Such issues are usually hard to reproduce in-house.
If anyone is still experiencing this issue, please help us with the following.

- Acrobat version installed: https://adobe.ly/42yab5Q;

- OS name and version.
- MS Office version.

- Source(MS Word) file and PDF file. And the exact steps of how you convert to PDF from a Word file.

- A video recording of the workflow. If possible, that is usually helpful to understand the issue in an exact manner.

Thank you for reaching out and sharing your feedback.

~Tariq

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StarJK

New Participant

Bump. This is still an open issue. A direct answer from Adobe would be appreciated here to clarify their backend text processing.

I've run into the same line-spacing discrepancy in Open Office's .otf documents. A "double-spaced" line spacing option applied to text originally drafted in Open Office results in a line spacing of "2.3" when brought into Adobe Acrobat Pro (20.012.200043). I have double-checked my margins, page size, scaling, etc, and none are the culprit. It is difficult to trust a "reference" line scale when programs like Word, Open Office, and Adobe Acrobat Pro, all of which accepted as reference programs, lack a common standard.

The Purdue Owl (long standing reference for academic MLA standards) has a reference document formatted in MLA7 on their website, which when brought into Adobe Acrobat also registers as "2.3" line-spaced. For now, I'm assuming Word and Open Office share the same standard, and that Acrobat is applying a different standard that what Purdue considers reference line-spacing.

Hope that helps.