Thick letter L in pdf

[Guest]

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

[wlym]

Logos / wordmarks have letters that need to be converted to outlines, especially if modified. But I agree with you about not outlining body text.

Sorry, I had no idea this wasn't an Acrobat forum. I arrived here via one of the many links that came up in a Google search about this issue.

[creativeo66219242]

Always better to use fonts, I work for a printer, they have never printed 'fat' like they look ever - but we do in the real world sometimes still have to outline fonts, especially working with some agencies that won't supply their fonts when printing their projects.

A quick fix viewing solution..you can turn off a setting within Acrobat in the preferences (page display) if it annoys you..turn off enhance thin lines (it sees these glyphs as graphics after outlining, and adds to it) This is just a viewable fix on-screen however, and it will obviously, stop enhancing thin lines too. Nice tip about the 'adding anchor points' though!

[Willi Adelberger]

If an agency does not supply fonts, use PDF.

[creativeo66219242]

Yeah thanks..nothings quite that simple though.

[wlym]

This problem has happened twice in December alone to two different clients of mine, both of who called me wondering why the lower case "l" in their respective logos suddenly "looked too bold" and did I make a mistake. How unsatisfying it is to tell clients that it is Adobe's fault ("they changed something, I don't know why") and that they the client, non-technical people who only use Reader, have to try finding settings to toggle on and off to see if their PDF reader might work like it used to.

Maybe Adobe suggests I render all logos and wordmarks as fonts now? Obviously not an option. No, instead I've been asking clients, the ones who use Macs, to view the PDFs as Preview instead. Who cares really if it prints properly in the end, even if it looks wrong on screen? What about PDFs meant for on-screen viewing only? Do I really have to edit all logos (adding anchor points manually) so that i's and l's appear properly?

[Willi Adelberger]

This is not a bug, it is intended to do so to reduce file size. If you don't want to have this effects, you have 2 choices:

1. Leave fonts as fonts, don't outline them.
2. If you have to outline fonts, add anchor-points to equal width line letters like L, l, I, i, –, - and others, it will stop converting them to single lines.

[wlym]

That old saying, that sprung from moveable type, "mind your 'p's and 'q's" can now be upgraded changed thanks to this wonderful new feature! "Mind your 'L's, 'l's, 'i's, '-'s, and '–'s" doesn't really have the same ring to it but it'll catch on if paired with a viral-bound meme GIF!  😉

[wlym]

I didn't know that the cause of this issue was that Acrobat renders those characters as single lines as opposed to 4 point shapes. Any idea why Apple's Preview app displays the very same PDFs properly? In my experience Apple Preview anti-aliases those problem characters properly - only Adobe's software has problems.

[Mattw0023]

A reliable fix is to create a compound path, joining the lowercase L with the other letters in your logo. Then Acrobat will render it the same weight as the letters around it since it will no longer see it as a single 4-point rectangle.

[wlym]

This is a neat idea, I'll give it a try. Much easier than manually adding anchor points. Thanks!

[dberry77]

Uncheck "Enchance Thin Lines" in Acrobat preferences and your problem is fixed.  It has nothing to do with converting to outlines.  You should always convert to outlines unless your pdf is being used internally and you are sure everyone has your fonts.  If not, your fonts will be replaced and your formatting can get really screwed up when opened on another machine.

[Peter Spier]

You should avoid converting text to outlines like the plague. Outlined text loses hinting and becomes less readable, and it is not searchable. Furthermore, InDesign automatically embeds fonts, other than CJK and restricted fonts, when you export, so the correct fonts are always used.

[Willi Adelberger]

Sorry, you are completely wrong: A document will be screwed up, if text is outlined. Never do that. Let type be alive in the PDF, embed the fonts, anything else is producing trash. Your recommendation is wrong and terrible destroying files.