Participant

Question

Font looks bold after exporting

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
April 24, 2025
4 replies
956 views

Hi there, I am not sure if this is an exporting option, but I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I keep having a problem when I export a PDF (interactive or print), the fonts appear bolder than they actually are.

I am using an open-source font (Barlow) and have tried to adjust export settings to embed the fonts in the file, but that doesn't help. I'm photos that show the issue. I want to be able to put PDFs online without it appearing this way but I can't figure out how.

leo.r

Community Expert

I can confirm what @Brad @ Roaring Mouse has said: that the Smooth Text setting in Acrobat preferences affects the way text appears in your document. It appears normal with the default For Laptop/LCD Screens option and bolder when None is selected. But in Foxit PDF Reader, the effect of the same option is actually the opposite: when None is selected, text becomes too thin.

In Preview and various browsers, text looks slightly bolder than in Acrobat but not nearly as bad as in your screenshot.

That's on a Mac with a Dell 27" 4K monitor.

As a test, try to replace your font with a mainstream one like Myriad - will it behave differently?

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

This sounds like a hinting/text smoothing issue.

Check your Acrobat Preferences under Page Display, re: Text Smoothing

Even so, it also depends on the resolution of your particular monitor how well these settings apply. As for 3rd party viewers/browsers, you are at their mercy as to how they render the fonts and any hinting designed in them.

In my example here, the difference between "None" (left), or On (middle and right. in my case I have it set for "Monitor"), but the middle one is on my standard monitor, and the right one is on my iMac Retina screen, with widely better results.

(btw: The reason it was asked about converting to outlines is because, in doing so, you eliminate any font hints, which can make outlined text look bolder at smaller zooms, especially on standard low pitch monitors)

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@Brad @ Roaring Mouse

The problem is when viewing this PDF from the Browser - and the problems is because, initially, browser has only low-res preview - that is either updated by zooming in and out - or after a few seconds.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@ellie_5063

Have you converted them to outlines?

Or do you have any transparency effects on the page?

Can you share actual PDF?

E

ellie_5063Author

Participant

Converting to outlines does help. I was hoping to keep the file as an interactive PDF with text that is hyperlinked, but if converting to outlines is the only solution, I can find a workaround for the links.

There are some transparency effects, but removing them hasn't helped. Here is the PDF: https://www.nature.org/content/dam/tnc/nature/en/documents/p2p-spring-2025.pdf

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

Converting to outlines does help. [...]

By @ellie_5063

I wasn't suggesting you'll do it - I was asking if you did - which most of the time would result in texts being displayed "bolder".

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Hi Ellie,

What app are you viewing it on? Acrobat Pro or Reader, I hope?

Mike Witherell

E

ellie_5063Author

Participant

Acrobat Pro, but my goal is to share this PDF online where people can easily view it without downloading it or using Acrobat. https://www.nature.org/content/dam/tnc/nature/en/documents/p2p-spring-2025.pdf

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