Text missing when converting a designed Word document to PDF

Report · Dec 12, 2022

Hi

My daughter designed a friend's wedding invitations in Word and is trying to convert them to PDF, but part of the design drops off when we convert it.

We have tried 'save as pdf' and 'print to pdf' - same issue each time. With the 'print to pdf' the text also becomes gibberish.

My daughter used a Mac, but her friend and I both have non-Mac laptops so I thought there was possibly an issue, but we can all open the document in Word and it looks fine, and it won't convert to PDF on either a Mac or non-Mac.

The document contains several text boxes and shapes - I've tried bringing to front the text boxes that keep dropping off, but that isn't fixing the issue.

I'm usually very good at playing around with things and finding a workaround, but this one has me stumped! I've tried copying and pasting into Powerpoint to save as a picture, but it just pastes blank and then the Word document crashes.

Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂

Report · Dec 12, 2022

Talking from Windows use but would apply to Mac:

- When you go to Print amd choose PDF as the Printer option, you should have Printer Options. Have you tried differ settings? I would choose the Press Quality option.
It may be the types of contect text boxes, etc) that is causing a problem with the conversion. I'd try different settings to see if that works.

Report · Dec 18, 2022

Hi Dean - sorry, I didn't get notification that anybody had responded until I got your request for update this morning! I have just tried the press quality print and my computer has completely lost the plot! I'm getting 100s of pop-ups with Configuration Manager Trace Tool Log errors! I did work out that it's definitely one particular text box that is causing the issue - it's got a curved font and it's actually minimising it to a dot. I'll try a different font when my computer stops going nuts and see if the press quality works and let you know.
Thanks for responding.

Alison

Report · Dec 13, 2022

When you see "Print to PDF" or "Save as PDF," invariably, that means that the PDF engine is the operating system. When you're using Acrobat, it would say "Save as Adobe PDF."

Can you please tell us which version of Acrobat you are using? Is it Acrobat Reader? Acrobat Standard? Or Acrobat Pro?

If you are using Acrobat Reader, then there's nothing that we can do because Acrobat Reader does not help the user to generate new PDFs. All the Reader can do is open up PDF documents, help you fill in PDF forms, and do some other important, but not PDF generation, operations.

Let us know what you have,

Report · Dec 18, 2022

Hi Gary - I have Adobe Pro 🙂

Report · Dec 18, 2022

@Alison27534775y2qa - Any update with your issue?

Report · Dec 18, 2022

Hi Alison,

OK, Acrobat Pro. Things should be good.

Typically, when moving from the Mac to PC or vice versa, the biggest issue is fonts. This would show up as text fitting on one line may require two lines. Or if paragraphs all fit on one page to now require two pages (well, one and a bit more). Or the other way around on both of these issues.

Now, when you say that the text boxes keep falling off, I'm assuming that you mean that they are on the bottom of page, but do not show up on the PDF? If so, please try this experiment: Add an extra page to the document, even if it's empty, just leave it there. Now, when you save to the PDF, do you find the items on the 2nd page?

Next, are you still using Save as PDF or are you using Save as Adobe PDF?

Report · Dec 22, 2022

Hi Gary
I actually found that the text boxes missing were minimising to tiny dots on the page - not actually dropping off. I haven't found a work around at this point - changing fonts isn't helping and neither is saving as Adobe PDF. I've actually given it back to my daughter and told her I cant' fix it!!