RE: PDF documents are gobble-de-gook when printing?

[Cindy Hudson <chudson -at- ECS-INC -dot- com>]

Has anyone had that problem when the fonts *are* embedded? 

I ran into this a few weeks ago with an out-of-state customer who was
getting Dingbats in place of several fonts. They were definitely embedded. I
checked it three times to be absolutely sure. Unfortunately, I couldn't get
him to answer any of my questions (whether he was saving it to his hard
drive or printing directly from the 'Net, what version of Acrobat Reader he
used, etc), and I couldn't duplicate the problem on any computer in the
office. Finally ended up just printing a hard copy and mailing it to him.

I'd still like to know what caused that.


Cindy Hudson


-----Original Message-----
From: Hart, Geoff [mailto:Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 11:32 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: PDF documents are gobble-de-gook when printing?


Ann Waterhouse reports: <<... some people in the office ... can't seem to
print legible .PDF documents. The graphics are fine yet the text is garbage
(random symbolsreplace the actual text). I can take the same document and
print it from my machine with no problems. >>

Sounds like the problem is that whoever created the PDF didn't embed the
fonts; if the end-user doesn't have the correct font on their computer,
Acrobat will try to substitute an appropriate font, and if it guesses wrong
for the substitution, you'd get the symptoms you describe. Two possible
fixes: Redistill the original file and embed the fonts, or install the
missing fonts on the computers that are causing the problems. (Note: You can
copy the standard Windows or Mac fonts that come with the OS between
machines, but other fonts are copyrighted material, and can't be so copied
unless the developers permit this. It used to be that fonts from Adobe were
licensed "per printer", so you could share them, but I'm not up to date on
the current licensing practice.)

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca 
"User's advocate" online monthly at
www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/usersadvocate.html

"Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot; others transform a
yellow spot into the sun."- -Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Planning to attend IPCC 01, October 24-27 in Santa Fe?  Sign up by
October 3 and get a substantial discount!  Program information, 
online registration, and more on http://ieeepcs.org/2001/

+++  Miramo -- Database/XML publishing automation.  See us at  +++
  +++  Seybold SFO, Sept. 25-27, in the Adobe Partners Pavilion  +++
  +++ More info: http://www.axialinfo.com  http://www.miramo.com +++

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.