Text Thickening Issue in InDesign When Importing Images

[Ali Osman Aydogdu]

Hello,

I'm having a problem with Adobe InDesign. In a new document, I can type text normally, as expected. However, when I import an external image into an open InDesign document, the text appears thicker. There's no visible problem with the imported images, but the text is distorted; it appears bold or thicker than intended.

I've done some checking. My document isn't corrupted, and the problem occurs even when I create a new document from scratch. I uninstalled and reinstalled the program, but the problem persists. There's no problem with the font files, but the same thing happens with other fonts.

Laptop specifications:

NVIDIA graphics card: GTX 1050
Processor: Intel i7
RAM: 32 GB

Is there a solution to this?

[leo.r]

This can be caused by certain transparency effects or settings (although I can't recall the exact solutions for this issue right now).

I found this thread regarding a similar issue (albeit it deals with text thickening in exported PDF):

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/font-showing-up-bolder-on-some-pages/m-p/1754575...

[Peter Spier]

If, indeed, this is being caused by transparency, it can usually be avoided by keeping the text above the images in the stacking order.

[Ali Osman Aydogdu]

Unfortunately, I've tried various methods but still haven't resolved the issue. The issue isn't the PDF file itself, but the INDesgin program itself. I've uploaded a visual below to better illustrate. I'd appreciate it if you could take a look.

[Scott Falkner]

Does it affect the output of the text? Compare the appearance of a PDF with and without the image. I suspect you won’t see a difference. If you do it might be because the text was outlined when the PDF was saved. Opentype fonts contain hints that affect how the path for the text aligns to the grid of pixels (on a screen) or dots (in a printer). When text is converted to outlines you are seeing the exact same paths used for the text, but since the paths are no longer text the hints that help the text look sharper have no effect. For high resolution output or large point sizes this won't matter. If your InDesign file is intended for printing on a press or other high reoluiton device then you should be fine.

[Ali Osman Aydogdu]

This might not be a problem for printing, but when designing, a distorted font in the preview (i.e., a bold font in the preview) seriously impacts the design process. I can't tell the difference between a font being "regular" and "medium." Before importing the image, it appears as "regular (a thinner font), while after importing the image, it appears as "medium (a slightly thicker font). This font is actually a "regular" font. After importing the images, a "regular font" appears as a "medium font," and a "bold font" appears as a "black font."

[Peter Spier]

@Ali Osman Aydogdu as I mentioned above, you should try moving your text above the imagesin the stacking order, perhaps to their own layers.

[Ali Osman Aydogdu]

Unfortunately, I've tried various methods, but I still haven't been able to resolve the issue. The problem isn't the PDF file itself, but the InDesign program itself. I've uploaded an image below to better illustrate. I'd appreciate it if you could take a look. Thank you.

[Ali Osman Aydogdu]

Unfortunately, I've tried various methods but still haven't resolved the issue. The issue isn't the PDF file itself, but the InDesign program itself. I've uploaded a visual below to better illustrate. I'd appreciate it if you could take a look.

[Willi Adelberger]

Do you work with layers? Put the text in a layer above the layer with the images. 

[Ali Osman Aydogdu · Accepted solution]

I found the solution.

In InDesign:
Edit > Transparency Blend Space > Document RGB or Document CMYK

Changing to RGB fixed the problem. Or you could try the opposite.

@leo.r already mentioned transparency settings above, but I couldn't quite figure it out.

Thank you!