Font showing up bolder on some pages

[Guest]

Hi,

when I generate a PDF file from my Indesign file, some of the pages end up with the font being noticeably thicker than others.

Please see the attached PDF - pages 4, 7, 8, 10 and 15 have this bolder-looking text on them.

My whole actual PDF file is over 100 pages and this sort of problem occurs on about 25-35% of the pages.

I have no idea what could be causing this.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Chuckee

[Kenneth C. Benson]

All the text here looks equally dark to me (in Acrobat 7, Windows XP).

Ken Benson

[Guest]

OK - I've checked on 2 different computers, and the font shows up as noticeably bolder on pages 4, 7, 8 and 10. If you scroll down using the mouse wheel then the fonts remain normal. You either need to click on the up or down arrows in the sidebar, or drag the bar to move up or down the page to see the bolder font.

Please can you try doing that?

The thread I started in the Acrobat forum is here: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/424772

[Thomas Phinney]

This is starting to sound very much like a software issue... question would be whether it's an app or maybe a video driver.

How are you viewing this? What version of Acrobat? You aren't perchance viewing the PDFs using Apple's "Preview" app, are you?

Also, check to make sure you have the latest drivers for your video card.

Regards,

T

[Thomas Phinney]

(Oops, forum problem, forgive double post.)

[Guest]

I am viewing the PDF's using Acrobat Professional 8.1.2. I also viewed the PDF's using Acrobat Reader on another computer, with the same result.

Please can someone confirm that they also see thicker fonts. Look at the bottom of page 4 and the top of page 5 at the same time, and it is obvious on my computers.

[Jeremy_bowmangraphics-DQuh1B]

To me, this just looks like an artifact of screen re-drawing (not sure what the technical terms for it is). If you use the scroll arrows to get the dark text, then use the scroll wheel to move some of it off -- then back on -- to the screen, the re-drawn bit is no longer darker.

[Peter Spier]

Sorry, no difference here on Windows XP with Acrobat 9. It would be nice to here from some other Mac users.

I was going to ask the same question about Preview, but you've answered it...

[chodorowicz_]

I've had today a similiar problem and I've wasted several hours "debugging" it so maybe my solution will help somebody. First of all my problem was kind of "opposite" - the pages with transparent png/psd had slimmer, jagged text + the pasted transparent image looked kind of bleak - aftery many tries the thing that workded for me  was putting on every page (through master page) a small transparent (0.01%) rectangle - all the pages got then original correct form of text.

This bug is really terrible and occurs from what I've read since CS3 (I'm using CS5) - I cannot believe that Adobe haven't dealt with it yet...

[Jongware]

It's not really a "bug". Because of the transparency, your PDF viewer (Acrobat?) switches to another drawing algorithm: slower, because it has to calculate the correct color to display per pixel, but more accurate. For text-only pages, Acrobat uses a faster algorithm.

If you switch on "Overprint Preview" in your Acrobat, you should see everything the same.

It's also possible you accidentally put something transparent over text -- that causes the text (and all other vector data) underneath it to be rasterized. You should try to avoid this, as it probably will show up in print (especially if you forgot to export with a high resolution setting for Transparency Flattening).

[chodorowicz_]

Many thanks for these explanations. It surely makes more sense now (and the "overprint preview" in Acrobat worked as you said). But still, I believe that this behaviour of Indesign+Acrobat is very confusing and difficult to debug, especially for novice users. I think there should be some setting in Indesign export options to force the same rendering algorithm for all pages.

Thanks again!

[lorenap49899769]

In my case it worked by changing from CMYK to RGB.

For doing that you need to go to Edit > Transparency Blend Space.

Good luck!

[awalker526]

I had this same issue and was able to fix it after much cursing. Here's what worked for me (using Indesign CS5.5 on a PC):

First - I did everything suggested here: Avoid unwanted “bold type” and odd, shaded boxes in your InDesign document - The Graphic Mac

1. I put all layers with images underneath text or in a separate layer folder underneath text layers.
2. I made sure all the graphic files (.EPS, .AI, .PSD, etc) linked to the document were consistently using the same color mode. I was working with a indesign intended for print, so Edit > Transparency Blend Space was CMYK, so I made sure all my linked images were also CMYK. A couple of them were still RGB. (If the doc was for electronic use only -- or if I had only .JPG or .PNG files to work with -- I would have used RGB for everything instead. Just be consistent.)
3. I also flattened any photoshop .PSD files linked in the indesign document.
4. Finally, there was one linked vector image that was saved as .AI, from a newer version of Illustrator. I opened the .AI file and saved it as .EPS instead, and re-linked it to the .EPS file.

Also for me, if any object had Effects that mess with transparency (e.g., like Drop Shadow), it would cause the issue to persist no matter what. Removing drop shadow (or just doing it in photoshop and then flattening it) helped. 

[cardinem47387408]

I had this issue on the second page of a two-page document. I found out that two images were causing the text of the second page to appear bolder when exported. One image was a JPEG and the other was a PNG. I resolved the issue by saving both as EPS file.

[Amanda_Y]

I've encountered this issue also and though it's a belated answer thought it was worthwhile responding as it took quite a bit of internet researching. In my situation, the font was light and quite thin. It was an indesign file with a linked illustrator logo. I found a post which said to change a preference in acrobat ie. turn off the option to "enhance thin lines". Then write the PDF. It worked for me!

Adobe Acrobat showing thick "L" and "I" characters

[artworksg99913146 · Accepted solution]

I think I have the solution.

This issue (that some fonts seem bolder in the pdf) is caused by some effect. It can be a drop shadow, an inner shadow, a blending mode option or something like that. And it is happening on the texts that are on the blank areas. Right?

So the solution is to have the text block filled with white instead of blank.

I had the same issue for so long but the above solution has worked 100%.

Cheers, dudes.

[Mike Stonelake]

I had the same problem and found that I had inadvertently used a spot colour for the text. Once I converted it to process colour it sorted out the problem - so worth checking at least.

[Steve Werner]

You're editing on a conversation almost one decade old.

I'm locking this thread. If you have further questions start a new discussion with complete information about your version of InDesign and system.