Myriad Pro font is all grayed out on iPhone/iPad when used on MS Office program saved PDF document

[Guest]

Hi,

I have spoken to Hardik, Alex and a few more Adobe representatives about this issue and I have had a terrible responses. They disconnected my call while I was on hold. They kept shying away from their responsibility to give me a solution than just telling me that they do not support handheld devices when it is not even an issue with handheld devices.

I wish to use Myriad Pro family of fonts for our corporate slides and other related material, but when I use this font on any MS Office program like Powerpoint or Word, save that document as PDF and try to view that PDF file on iPad or iPhone, the font is all distorted and shaded and completely unreadable.

The same font works when a document is saved as a PDF via Illustrator or any other Adobe program which proves it is not an issue with iPad or the iPhone but with either Microsoft Office or Adobe's product (Myriad Pro).

I will be contacting Microsoft for the same but there is a high possibility that they will blame Adobe for this problem as the font is owned by Adobe.

I just needed any Adobe's representative to support me when I talk to Microsoft in fixing this problem. I am not interested in known who is responsible and who is not, but how can I fix this problem.

Please help.

Thanks,

Abhinav

[Thomas Phinney]

I must admit, my first thought is a bug in Apple's mobile PDF viewing app.

Abhinav, what happens when you view the same PDF in Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) on Mac, Windows or Linux? In Preview on Mac?

If it views fine on other platforms, then the problem would seem to lie in the iOS PDF viewer. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple's Preview app on Mac OS also had problems, as it may share code.

Regards,

T

Clarified Reader or Acrobat

[Guest]

Hi Thomas, Thanks for replying.

I guess the problem is the part when I save the document as PDF via any Microsoft Office program.

I can open the pdf on my windows based laptop and it works fine, although the font loses its sharpness as compared to Adobe Illustrator - which is acceptable, considering I have never had any hopes from Microsoft in terms of design anyways.

The same font when PDF'd via Illustrator is absolutely fantastic on iPhone or iPad. So the problem is definitely at the end when Microsoft program saves the document as PDF.

Really looking for Adobe's response on this.

Abhinav

[Dov Isaacs]

Abhinav,

For the record, these forums are not officially monitored by Adobe Support. They are primarily for assistance from other users. However, some Adobe employees do occasionally stop by.

In terms of your issue, if you can either send me a sample of the PDF file you are having issues with, I'd be glad to investigate and see what is going on. It might be how the PDF file is created, how the font is or is not embedded, as well as how you are viewing the PDF file. Also, please advise as to whether you are viewing the file via Apple's internal PDF viewer on iPhone/iPad (and which models) and/or whether you have tried viewing the free, downloadable Adobe Reader for iOS.

Looking forward to assisting you.

          - Dov

[Guest]

[Guest]

Hi Dov,

I have emailed you all the screenshots of my iPhone and then procedure to save as PDF. Really looking forward to your response.

Thanks,

Abhinav

[Dov Isaacs]

I've definitively located the source of the problem. In this case, there is no bug in the Myriad Pro Condensed font and there is no bug in the Apple iOS viewer.

I've privately e-mailed a detailed analysis of the problem, it causes, and the workaround/fix. But simply stated, the problem is a nasty bug in Microsoft Office 2010's save as PDF feature. For some reason, it assumes that some or all OpenType CFF fonts are not embeddable in PDF files and substitutes a very low resolution raster image for each text run.

The workaround is very simple, The save as Adobe PDF PDFMaker feature installed with Adobe Acrobat 10 Pro or Adobe Acrobat 10 Standard produces much more reliable PDF files from within Microsoft Office applications and doesn't have the font problems that Microsoft's "free" save as PDF feature has.

          - Dov