why are Word docs being saved as blurry pdf's?

[miken511837]

Starting early Dec 2018, Reader is showing blurred images when saving a Word doc in PDF format. Why? I have done the repair and delete/reinstall and it still does this. Is this Adobe having decided to no longer support this functionality and disabling the code that previously allowed that save to be a sharp image???

[Meenakshi Negi]

Hi Miken,

When you convert the Word file with an image to PDF, the image gets compressed while conversion.

As it is not a vector image, it becomes little blurry in the PDF.

However, you may try to change the conversion settings to reduce the compression using the steps mentioned below:

- Open the document and go to the Acrobat tab at the top menu bar.

- Click on Preferences and select High-quality print from the conversion setting drop-down list.

- You may also check the Advanced settings there.

Check if that helps.

Let us know how it goes.

Regards,

Meenakshi

[miken511837]

There is nothing in Preferences about "conversions." nor is there an Advanced settings option. I guess those are not available with Reader (?). In Reader, to get Preferences I have to use the Edit button. In any event, this blurry rendering problem is new as of Dec 2018 and persists to this day. Is this intentional by Adobe? Is it forcing me to subscribe to a fee-for-service version?

[Bernd Alheit]

How did you create the PDF files?

[miken511837]

For years, I send clients both a Word and a PDF version of a doc in case they don't have Office. From the Word doc I did File Save As and chose PDF. The PDF renderings faithfully were an exact, sharp replica of the Word version. Until 12-3-18.

[Meenakshi Negi]

As you have mentioned above, you are using the Adobe Reader application.

It seems that you creating PDF using the Save as PDF in MS Word application. Is that right?

If yes, then you are using the Microsoft converter to create PDF, not Adobe PDF maker. In this case, there is nothing that can be done in this from our end.

You may try once to check the Reader preferences. Launch Reader DC and go to Edit  > Preferences > Page Display.

Under the "Rendering", check the box for Smooth line art and Smooth Images. Click OK at the bottom to save the settings.

Check if that helps or makes any difference.

Regards,

Meenakshi

[miken511837 · Accepted solution]

Hopefully problem solved. When saving from the Word doc, I noticed there are two options to "Optimize:" Standard and Minimum. When I checked Standard, the last 2 file saves have had sharp images.

[SVGicale]

Good day Sir, what if the "smooth line art" and "smooth images" is not available? I can't check the boxes.

[PL Toronto]

Hi Miken511837,

You might already have moved on from this question, but in case anyone else is facing this issue I thought I'd post. It’s now June 2020 and judging from many communities, boards and discussion threads the issue of why Microsoft Word seems to convert to low-quality Adobe Acrobat PDFs seems to still plague a lot of people. It bugged me for a couple days and following is the solution I stumbled on today.

1. After you convert a Word file to an Adobe Acrobat PDF on a Mac, open the PDF file. If the font(s) in the PDF look different than the fonts in your Word file (low-quality, pixelated, etc), try these steps:
2. In either Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat Pro, go to Preferences > Page Display
3. For the menu item “Smooth Text:” select either “Monitor” or “For Laptop/LCD screens” (you'll likely find that it's set to "None", which appears to be the problem; it's a visual setting, and doesn't appear to have anything to do with embedded fonts, font licensing, etc, as many users have concluded.)
4. Click "OK" and then look at your PDF. Hopefully, your document fonts, images, etc, should look identical to the way they appear in your Word doc.

I've included a screengrab of the Preferences window below. This method fixed the appearance of fonts in my PDFs. (I'm still not sure how this happened as I've used Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat Pro with zero issues for years; I'm not sure how the setting got changed.) I hope this helps others who may face this issue now and in the future.

Best,

PL from Toronto

[one of each]

Thanks. This was the answer that I was looking for.

[defaultk0irghzmwq9l]

When I use Word to convert to PDF, my PDFs look blurry. But when I use the Adobe Acrobat Chrome extension, my PDFs look crisp!

[MARK5FFA]

Also having this issue, in particular with items in the watermark area...they're highly pixelated despite taking steps above. Is this fixable?