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T
Talonvest User
Participant
April 12, 2022
Question

Text looks distorted when exporting to PDF

  • April 12, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 5808 views

I have a number of files on InDesign that I've exported to PDF format so they can be distributed digitally. I've noticed that the PDFs all distort the text slightly, making it look kind of wavy in some spots. I've tested this on multiple computers asking different colleagues to open the file and we all encounter the same issue. I'm wondering if it might have to do with the resolution of the saved file? When I zoom in, it looks a little better, and it looks perfectly fine when I print. However, we plan to distribute this to clients digitally.

 

How can I ensure the text lines appear straight on an exported PDF from an InDesign fie?

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    1 reply

    Brad @ Roaring Mouse
    Community Expert
    Brad @ Roaring MouseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 12, 2022

    It's very likely a result of type hinting in the font you are using. This shows up more at lower resolutions (like on a screen), and will vary depending on the font.

    You can play with the various options in Acrobat's Preferences > Page Display > Rendering to see if you can minimize the effect, but you won't be able to eliminate it.

    Can you share a sample file?

    T
    Talonvest UserAuthor
    Participant
    April 13, 2022

    This is one of the files I'm working with. It's the text at the top that I'm having issues with. I appreciate your help!

    Brad @ Roaring Mouse
    Community Expert
    Brad @ Roaring MouseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 13, 2022

    You have two issues.

    The most affecting is the fact your first paragrph is not completely horizontal, it's angled very slightly clockwise (about 0.2-0.3 degrees), so at monitor resolution, the characters are rendering as best they can and every few words will drop down a pixel, making it look ragged.

    Second, your Times-Roman is embedded in a very weird way... in fact it's embedded twice, some characters are embedded as a TrueType font and others are embedded with a Type 0 type (why, who knows), and are mixed randomly in your first paragraph. and, due to the different ways TrueType fonts are hinted and the fact the Type 0 probably is not hinted at all, is probably exaggerating the distortion..

    So, my first question is, where did you get your Times font?

    I suggest your replace your Times font with a new set, then straighten your copy and you should be good to go.

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