Please help me! Time crunch!

[Sydney Ziemba]

Hi everyone,

I am having a massive problem within InDesign somewhere, and I have no idea how to fix it. On my end, my file is set up perfectly, and everything looks great, in both the file and the export. However, my coworker sees my type as if it's different sizes within the same sentence. I have tried exporting several different ways, as well as started a new file, and it's still happening on her end. Also don't know why she sees it that way on her end, and I don't. Does anyone know what this is??

How it looks on my end:

how it looks on my coworker's end: 

[BobLevine]

What format did you export to?

[Sydney Ziemba]

I needed the final to be in a print pdf but have also tried interactive pdf, jpeg, png, and even screenshotting it over, and she told me it's the same problem throughout.

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

Export to almost any PDF should produce an exact replica of a print layout, with very crisp text.

It looks as if your export is somehow rasterizing the text (turning it to an image) instead of using font/vector information as PDF does by default.

It may also be a fault of your co-worker's PDF viewer. Genuine Acrobat Reader is strongly recommended for accurate, crisp presentation (and is of course free for nearly all platforms). If she is using a browser or some aftermarket reader, it may be introducing its own problems in viewing the PDF.

Check both: that you are doing a bone-stock PDF export using any standard selection (no modification to settings), and that she is using an adequate viewer.

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[Sydney Ziemba]

Thank you so much, didn't think about what she's viewing it through. Everything looks fine on my end so hopefully, that's the problem. I will look into this, thank you!

[BobLevine]

Can you post the PDF somewhere for us to look at?

[Sydney Ziemba]

It looks like it was her viewer that was the problem! Thank you all for the help on this; I will save this information for later if I need it!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Super!

Yes, it's frustrating that there are so many different PDF viewers out there, and that so many of them fall short of implementing the full interpretation model. That a solid, mature standard such as PDF should be subject to such corner-cutting — when fer pete's sake, the official viewer is free, multiplatform and well supported! — is annoying in itself, but moreso in that it feeds a general-user opinion that PDF is, well, crap. I long ago lost track of how many end recipients and other users without much graphics background react badly to receiving a PDF, from just an "oh, yuck" to outright refusal to even try to open/read it. Add in bad use (such as the all too common printing out pages, then scanning them into a PDF!) and one of the most useful tools in digital communication gets far too much blame and abuse.

The takeaway: any time someone says they are having trouble reading a PDF, ask politely what they're using to read it, and if it's a browser (default browser function, at least, not Acrobat as a plug-in) or one of the many "free" "light" "simple" "ha ha we're not adobe" readers... suggest they at least use Acrobat to verify the problem, if not switch to it as their default.

Glad it was simple for you.

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