"Fi" and "Fl" missing in edit mode

[VickiP14]

I frequently print to pdf from the internet. When I edit those documents in Adobe, words that start with "fi" or "fl" drop those two letters and the lines go half a line out of alignment. I can copy everything after the word that starts with "fi" or "fl", retype the word before it and the word that starts with "fi" or "fl" and then paste the rest of the content back in and the issue is resolved. Typically, the font that is printed from the internet isn't a font that exists in Adobe. I have tried just changing the font of the content but that doesn't resolve it. I also checked the font color to make sure the letters aren't just hiding in white. The letters are there in the original print. 

Any thoughts as to why I have the issue to begin with? I'm on a Microsoft Surface Pro laptop with Windows 10 but the same thing happened on my Lenovo Thinkpad, Windows 7 and 10.

[ls_rbls]

Hi,

What web browser are you using?

[VickiP14]

I'm using Chrome. To speak to one of your other replies, I am hitting a print button on the webpage (they are recipes and they print to a lot of pages. I like to reformat to get it down to 2 at a max). In looking through the settings for Adobe PDF printer, I went to Printer Properties-->Advanced-->Print Processor and changed the Default Data Type to TEXT. This worked but the setting doesn't stay. It goes back to RAW.

[ls_rbls]

Well, one option is like I suggessted with the extension.

In MS Windows, using Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer it allows to print sections of a web page instead of the converting the whole website to a PDF document.

But if your method is  working, Are you setting this up through the control panel for the Adobe PDF Converter driver? 

If so, right-click on it and select "Set as defualt printer"  Would that help?

If that doesn't do anything restart the spooler service. From what I read the spooler service will expect print processing calls from the prior configuration you had, so a manual restart of the print spooler may resolve this.

[VickiP14]

I have the extension but I'm not printing the whole webpage but I'll give that a try. You're beyond my ability when you say to restart the spooler service. 🙂

I went to printers and selected Manage then Printer Properties. I'll also look at another browser and see if that helps.

[ls_rbls]

+++MODIFIED REPLY

To restart the printer spooler service right-click on My Computer, select "Manage" from the context menu, and then the Computer Management adminisrative console window  will open up next.

Select Services and Applications to expans and click on "Services" from the selection below that line. On the right-side pane of that window you will see listed all services.

Is a long list of windows services that run in the backgrough. Scroll through the list of items and identify the Printer Spooler.  

See slide below:

It is a lot faster is you just hit the Windows key, type "CMD" (without the quotes), right-click and select "Run as Administrator" to open up the command prompt console terminal with administrative rigths.

and paste this command to stop the spooler: net stop spooler

and paste this command to start the spooler again: net start spooler

See below:

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

"fi" and "fl" are common ligatures where the letters are combined into one glyph to improve the appearance and readability of the text. To see a sample, view https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/ligatures   and scroll to the end where the fl ligature is demonstrated.

The problem you describe can happen when the website uses a font with ligatures and your computer doesn't have the matching font or one with ligatures to substitute.

The solution is for the website designer to get their act together and not use such things as ligatures. They're a helpful font technology for professionally design documents for printing, but not for websites and other digital media.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

One more idea:

When printing from the website, check your "print to PDF" options to see if you can embed the fonts into the PDF. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't due to copyright issues.

[VickiP14]

Bevi,

I don't know what you mean by embedding the font. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Thank you!

[Dov Isaacs]

I will respectfully strongly disagree! Fine typography should not be limited to printing. Why should it be?

The problem is that Acrobat's “editing” function needs to be much more intelligent in terms of handling what are apparent ligatures. The original content should not be dumbed down.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Dov Dov Dov, you know I agree with you 100%. I'm a former typesetter and font designer. This Font Fairy LOVES ligatures.

The Font Fairy, brought to you by the letter "A."

However, I work in the "real" world where files and websites have to function well enough across all media and devices, including assistive technologies for those with disabilities.

In that world, ligatures are a royal PITA ... pain in the anatomy.

Maybe you and your Adobe colleagues can do something to ameliorate this very painful process of printing a PDF from a website? There are numerous posts in this forum about problems with the conversion software, especially on Windows in various browsers. And fix the ligature problem, too? The ligature glyphs don't seem to be embeded into the print-to-PDF file.

[ls_rbls]

Hey Bevi and Dov,

I asked about the web browser because the user mention printing to PDF from the Internet. I may infer by that statement that when the user is on a webpage is either right-clicking on the web page, selecting Print and then print as PDF.

However, would you agree if by adding the Adobe Acrobat extension (currently supported in the new Micrososft Edge, Chrome and Firebox) would circumvent this issue?

Here's the link for the user: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/enable-createpdf-extension-chrome.html

I was going to suggest this option to the  user because the Adobe Acrobat extension has these built-in options that, instead of printing directly to PDF from a PDF-viewing-enabled browser, there are HTML to PDF conversion settings in the Preferences that actually allows to change Fonts to more ADA compliant fonts (i.e Arial).

[ls_rbls]

Here are some slides:

This is not necessary, but On the webpage that you're trying to print you can open it in your browser in developer mode (hit F12 key):

Below is the results following this Adobe guidance: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/converting-web-pages-pdf.html

This web page was converted to PDF using the Adobe Acrobat extension in Internet Explorer 11

This was converted to PDF using the Adobe Acrobat extension in Chrome web browser.

NOTE: NOT PERFECT BUT IN MY OPINION VERY GOOD ADD-ON AND I LOVE IT!