A

Anonymous

Question

Thick letter L in pdf

Forum|Forum|17 years ago
October 16, 2008
20 replies
123800 views

Hi Again

when i export an indesign file to pdf, any letter L's in the text appear to be very thick and stand out like a sore thumb. is there any reason for this and is it possible to ge rid of this problem.

thanks in advance

Phil

Show previous replies

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Is it really restricted to the single glyph, or just more noticeable there? Converting to outlines removes the font "hinting" and invariably makes type look bolder.

I suppose these come in as a variety of formats, some of which may not support font embedding. The best answer is, if possible, embed the font and don't convert to outlines. If that's not possible, you should consider opening the figures in Illustrator (presuming these are files that will open there), and resetting the type.

Peter

A

Anonymous

Do all fonts do this? Some fonts are more compatible with rendering in pixels than others, especially at small sizes. I
am having a constant battle with an organisation that insists on sending promotional e-mails with 8pt Helvetica which
always looks terrible because the characters adust left or right of their optimum position and so text has clumps of
characters rather then smooth spacing. Switching to a font designed for viewing on a screen, like Trebuchet or Verdana
may help. Even the switch from Helvetica to Arial is a noticeable improvement.

k

_

_Carole_G__Saylor_

New Participant

I work for a scientific organization. We usually receive images from our authors with the fonts in graphics converted to vector. When we import the images into InDesign, then create a pdf for proof, these graphics ALWAYS show thickened els and ones, no matter what the font was originally.
If you zoom in about 300%, they will appear correctly, but that's an annoying thing to tell people to do all the time. The pdfs are posted online, and the authors want to see their figures looking correct within the page without this awful distortion.
I've called tech support at Adobe, but no one has an answer. If someone has a work-around, I'd be glad to hear it.

Carole

BobLevine

Community Expert

Copy and pasting of formatted text from Illy to ID will result in the
text being converted to outlines.

Bob

Dov Isaacs

Brainiac

Every time I've seen this problem, it has been due to someone converting text rendered via fonts to text rendered by "outlines." Solution is simple - don't "outline" text unless there is some type of special effect that you need that can only be achieved in that manner (and there are very few of those).

- Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

W

wlym

Known Participant

"Solution is simple - don't "outline" text unless there is some type of special effect that you need that can only be achieved in that manner (and there are very few of those)."

So, using a vector logo or wordmark in a PDF is a rare case or special effect scenario now? If I need to place the Shell logo (for example) in my document to be exported to PDF, I either need to contact Shell's design dept. for a live font version of their logo (yah, right) or I need to edit the two "Ls" manually so that they don't look thicker than they should in a PDF?

Or I could convert all logos to raster and worry about the resolution from that point forward (providing they don't require spot colours).

Your solution may be simple but it's far from practical. Here's a better solution: Adobe spends some of our subscription money on fixing an obvious bug instead of on finding more ways to shoehorn Adobe Stock into everything.

EDIT: I'd like to add that Apple's Preview app has no such issues and displays these "problem letterforms" just fine.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

This thread is not about logos, it's about running text. Personally, I think a logo with real fonts properly embedded is preferable if the letterforms are not being altered, but I understand why many logos are not built that way. Loss of font hinting is not a big factor for readability in a logo, nor would I expect readers to expect to be able to search for a log using a text search in a PDF.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

>Peter Spier's reply (#2) is correct, but he doesn't explicitly note that it's an Acrobat or Reader display issue, not an ID error.

I guess I thought that was implicit. Thanks for mentioning it. :)

P

peter minneapolis

Participating Frequently

Hi, Phil:

Peter Spier's reply (#2) is correct, but he doesn't explicitly note that it's an Acrobat or Reader display issue, not an ID error.

In Acrobat Preference > Page Display > Rendering, there are some options that may be helpful in reducing the effect.

HTH

Regards

Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

A

Anonymous

Hi Guys

Thanks for getting back. As i am a newbie i dont fully understand the functionallity of indesign yet. The problem started when i was first using illustrator to make flyers for my company to go on the website. In answer to Kenneths response yes it does print ok and it is the lower case l but it shows up on the website. I think i may have figured it out in indesign though. The problem accured when i copied and paste from illustrator directly into indesign. When i write diretly in indesign the problem does not occur. Any reason why it does it in ai and not idd. very confusing.

to answer peter it stays proportionate to the rest of the text when zooming in and out therefore thick no matter where the zoom lies.

thanks for stopping by

_

_Kenneth_Benson_

Participating Frequently

I can make this happen only if I make a single letter l, convert it to
outlines, and then copy it and paste it into Indesign.

Is it possible you're seeing this with fl (ligature) combinations only?

I want to know if your thick letter ells in Indesign are text or
graphics. What happens if you use Find/Change to search for the letter
l? Does it find the thick ones, or does it skip over them?

And you didn't answer my question: every font, or just one particular font?

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

_

_Kenneth_Benson_

Participating Frequently

Every font, or just one particular font? Prints that way or just looks
bad on screen? Capital L or lower case l?

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Does it change if you zoom in or out? Many times horizontal or vertical strokes will appear to change weight depending on the zoom factor due to the need to use whole screen pixels. Rounding the ratio of stroke weight to resolution at a particular zoom level can cause things to either appear extra thick or disappear entirely on screen.

Peter

KarenSC

Inspiring

From my experience it doesn't appear to print differently to normal. Have you tried printing?

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