Pdf not printing ligatures

[katielady1]

Hi there,

I made a pdf from InDesign CC 2018 and it looks and prints fine on my end.

However on the client's end it looks fine on screen but when printing it's not printing ligatures, the letter spacing is weird, and the fonts aren't appearing correctly. Looks like they are being replaced with other fonts?

It's odd, its a templated newsletter that we've been doing together for years, however, I've just upgraded to Indesign 2018, from CS5.5 so I'm not sure if it's a related problem or not.

All the fonts in the PDF are embedded subset. I'm running high sierra on a Mac.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

[Laubender]

Hi,

what's the client's PDF viewer application?

If something other than Acrobat or Adobe Reader my advice would be to only use Acrobat or Adobe Reader on Mac OS X or Windows for desktop machines.

Regards,
Uwe

[katielady1]

Thanks for responding. I have an email out to the client to ask what viewer/program they were using.

[BobLevine]

There’s nothing wrong with the PDF. Whatever issue it is on the client’s end and we’ll need more info on what they’re doing.

Ignore the subsetting “advice” above. There is practically no benefit to embedding the entire font and for the most part, selecting 0% will still not embed the whole thing.

[katielady1]

Hi Bob,

The client is using "Acrobat Reader DC" - they said they paid for a year of it so perhaps they mean Acrobat DC?

Do you think printer memory may be an issue?

They are only have the issue on a few pages of the 12 page document - which is also weird.

[BobLevine]

I have no idea what the issue is. I can only tell you that it prints fine here on a less than high end desktop laser printer.

[Vincent Suzat]

Hi,

You're sur that your fonts are TOTALY embedded, and not partialy?

To embed all the font, chose 0%, and not 100% (it's absurd, as usual with Adobe...) in the Advanced pannel PDF settings

And of course, your font must be an Opentype (but if it's good on screen, it's the fact)

Regards,

Vincent

[katielady1]

Oooh. Okay, I'm wrong on that then. Exported using the High Quality Print setting for PDFs and the Advanced panel for that says 100%, not 0%.

[BobLevine]

What font? What PDF reader and what printer is in use on the client's end?

Can you post the PDF for one of us to check out?

[katielady1]

Hi Bob,

The fonts are Lato, Montserrat and Museo Slab.

You can see one of the problem pages of the pdf here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1R0qSWcBqiljsxQAX4fTcwM_B4MPxKDsT

And the client sent me a pic of how it prints for them:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=12IK0DVA2R2INloget7BXNZ8pRkuPSSer

I'm wondering if it might be a printer memory problem?

I have an email out to the client to ask them what program they are printing from. They don't have Illustrator.

It looks fine on their end, it's just not printing successfully. However, it prints fine for me.

Thanks for responding!

[BobLevine]

Just had another thought...

The symptoms being reported here sound very much like someone opening the PDF in Illustrator.

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

On behalf of Adobe…

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the PDF file you posted. I have fully validated if with all relevant Acrobat Pro DC preflight tests. And I have printed it successfully from both Windows and MacOS to both PostScript and non-PostScript printers without any issues whatsoever.

As Bob Levine responded, there is absolutely no advantage to fully embedding a font in a PDF file other than wasting disk space. That is not the issue here.

The three critical issues here are:

(1)     What PDF viewer is being used? Even if the user has Acrobat or Adobe Reader installed, if they view the PDF in a browser all bets are off since many of the browsers now block totally (Chrome and Microsoft Edge) or by option (Safari) PDF-viewing plug-ins. Many non-Adobe viewers are problematic with anything other than the simplest PDF saved from simple Word files.

(2)     For non-PostScript printers, the printer drivers may be problematic, especially but not necessarily on el-cheapo printers since for such printers, the driver gets involved in text output and InDesign-generated PDF for text using ligatures and OpenType features could get fairly complex. Check for driver updates.

(3)     And yes, it could be a printer issue itself, although the page shown is not particularly graphically-complex.

          - Dov

[katielady1]

Thanks for replying and looking at the file.

Only certain pages were causing problems for the client. The entire document is a 12-page pdf and the page I provided here is one of the pages the client is having a problem with.

However, I just sent them that single page and it printed fine on their end. They only have a problem with that page when they print it included in the entire document.

[Dov Isaacs]

Assuming they printed with either Acrobat or Adobe Reader (any version, actually), if they have problems it is most likely the printer driver if a non-PostScript printer.

          - Dov

[katielady1]

Thanks again Dov.