Font/spacing issues converting word 2016 document to PDF

[nat27]

Hey everyone,

Computers are so not my thing and I could use a little bit of help. I am trying to convert my thesis, which is a  word 2016 document to a pdf, but when I do the font and spacing look really strange. My  Adobe Reader says it is version 17.012.20098 if that helps. My document is all in times new roman, which should be fine because when I open other people's thesis from my lab group they look fine! I have tried embedding the text in word as well as exporting the document both as standard (publishing and printing) and minimum size (publishing online) and neither worked. I think I am allowed to submit my thesis in arial, which would maybe work better? But I just prefer times new roman if anyone has an insight on this issue that would be great.

[Adorobat · Accepted solution]

Hi Nat,

As per above-mentioned description, when exporting a word document (with fonts all in Times New Roman) to a pdf, the fonts doesn't look identical in pdf, is that correct?

Could you let us know how you are exporting the pdf - using File > Save as pdf option in MS Word?

Or Create PDF option in Adobe Acrobat or online at this link: https://cloud.acrobat.com/

You may also visit the following links which discuss the issue similar to yours:

Creating PDF from Word and not having proper font displayed even though it is embedded in Word???

Font spacing goes haywire when Word document is saved to PDF

Font Conversion issues from Word to PDF

When I convert my pdf to a word document, weird symbols show up on the word document. How do I preve...

Thanks,

Shivam

[nat27]

Thanks for getting back to me. Yay, my document does not look like times new roman (although it says it is under preferences->font) and the spacing between words is really strange. From word I am going to File->Export->Create PDF and it is from there that I tried to two different settings (standard and minimum size). I took your advice and tried to create the PDF from adobe, but it keeps saying internal service error so maybe I should try again later? I see other posts talking about printer/printer settings and have no idea what that means. I don't really know anything about adobe or this conversion process, just something I have to do to graduate and I would like it to look nice.

[nat27]

Just an update. Seems like your website was down for most of yesterday. I guess I have to buy the PDF maker if I want to try and create the PDF not in word, which I am not opposed to, but I don't know if that will fix my issue or not. I guess the real problem here is that I don't know if the issue is coming from the conversion process in word or how it is being read in adobe. Any insight would be appreciated.

[nat27]

Sorry, one last update! I got the trial version of adobe to download and creating the pdf from there solved my problem. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I guess that export function on word just sucks...

[Adorobat]

Thanks for sharing your findings with us.