Print Booklet to PDF messing up the fonts

[tiffanykustwan11]

I have customer supplied pdfs that I have been setting up in printer spreads for my production department. I place the pdf pages in InDesign and then when I do print booklet, the exported pdf has messed up fonts. See screenshots below showing the supplied pdf vs the printer spreads pdf. It's like it's bolding some of the font and it shouldn't be. It is incosistent as well within words. Any idea why this is happening and how to fix it?? 

Please help!!!

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Check to see if the fonts are embedded in the PDF and what program created the PDF. 

Acrobat Pro>File>Properties...>Description and Fonts tab.

Also check to see if the fonts were outlined.

[tiffanykustwan11]

I run a preflight on the supplied customer files in Acrobat Pro. The fonts show as all being Embedded Subsets.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

And the program that created the PDF?

If you want to message me and upload the ad, I can test it.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Nice... 

Why do you have to use InDesign's booklet? 

Can't you use options in your printer - or Acrobat? 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Or a professional imposition app or Acrobat Plugin.

I've used Quite Imposing a while back but there are others out there. Not sure if this would solve your problem, so use a trial/demo version first.

Of course, if you are printing to an in-house digital press, they should have some sort of imposition software included.

[tiffanykustwan11]

Our production department prints from pdf and when there are bleeds in the gutter, there are less adjustments on their end and less guesswork for the back-up if we supply them with printer spreads.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I don't think anyone was suggesting not supplying printer spreads. Just trying different things to find out where the problem lies.

[Peter Spier]

If you HAVE TO create printers spreads in InDesing, perhaps you'd do better using a script to impose them, then export as PDF/X-4.

I have two that Dave Saunders wrote years ago that I used to use regularly, and there are some others, including commercial products with more features if you do a google search.

[Jeffrey_Smith]

Here is something to try when exporting the printer spread PDF:

Export > Advanced > Subset fonts when percent of characters used is less than > change value to 0%

[tiffanykustwan11]

what program are you referencing for these steps??

[Peter Spier]

InDesign. That change to the export settings will embed the entire font, but I personally don't think that's where the problem is. Are you able to select that bolder type in Acrobat using the type touchup tool?

Worth testing, though.

What do you see if you do that and check its properties compared toyjr type that looks correct?

[tiffanykustwan11]

I'm confused because i'm using the File>Print Booklet feature, i'm not using the export menu to print as booklet spreads. Can you explain how the export menu affects the print booklet menu?  

[Peter Spier]

You have every reason to be confused.

Export has nothing to do with Print Booklet. I think waht's happened here is everyone is trying to convince you that exporting PDF is a better solution (but it will require some sort of script or plugin in either InDesign or Acrobat to do your imposition into printer spreads).

[tiffanykustwan11]

I've always used the print booklet feature for all my other jobs and for the most part this one clients files just get messed up with the fonts when i do it. So I end up just setting them up in spreads manually which for the smaller books isn't so bad, but when I get more and more pages, it's more cumbersome.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Out of curiosity, what happens to the PDF is you simple with the export menu (reader spreads, not printer spreads). 

Are you using Windows or Mac? What is the process you use when printing booklets?

[Peter Spier]

Do these books have bleeds? Do you need creep or to setup in signatures?

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

If you are placing PDFs from different sources, my guess is there are conflicts happening with the embedded subset, but it's hard to nail that down without seeing the files. Are there two PDFs on a particular spread that's messing up that you can share? (wither DM or otherwise).

If you place this one PDF on a new page of its own in  a new document, does it print/export properly?

[Jeffrey_Smith]

Conflicting subsets can be resolved by exporting/printing with 0% subset.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I would really like to hear from the OP about using export as a test. Creating a PDF with the booklet features requires going through PostScript, whereas export does not. It could be a font or subset "refrying" issue. 

[Peter Spier]

@Jeffrey_Smith Am I forgetting something about printing to PDF from long disuse? I don't recall any options for subsetting fonts, but I do have memory lapese in my old age.

[Peter Spier]

And what happens when you are placing PDFS from another source with subsett fonts that are not installed on your system? How do you resolve that?

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

The Adobe PDF Printer for Windows uses the default settings under the system settings or when creating a booklet unless one changes them.

System settings:

Also, one should turn this off:

Print Booklet (in order from left-to-right):

I'm not in front of my Mac right now, but it has to use the PostScript driver to create the PostScript file, then that has to be run through Distiller with the appropriate settings.

The Distiller setting has the font embedding preferences.

On could try setting the fonts in question to always embed. 

[Peter Spier]

Thanks David. I see that you can embed the entire font (if avaialble), but I'm not sure doing this "after the fact" for a client supplied PDF with a subset (with a different version, say, of a font installed on your system), or multiple different client PDFs with multiple subsets of  different versions of the same font, whether installed on your system or not, is going to fix a conflict.

I'd love for someone to tell me my skepticism is not justified.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I believe Acrobat Pro's Preflight can merge same-font subsets, but perhaps the simpliest solution is to open the supplied PDF in Acrobat Pro, outline it's fonts, then place it in the master PDF.