Problems importing pdf files

[Chrisw5]

This is something I reported some long time ago, and we're still having problems. We've carried out a number of tests, and have now narrowed down the problem.

We have one contributor to our magazine who uses MS Publisher to create their documents, and then saves them as pdfs for us to import into AfPub. The problem appears to be limited to the parts of the document that use Small Caps, and when imported, the tracking percentage goes completely haywire. An identical sample created in Word imports without any problems.

The attached files demonstrate the issue. They use the same text, created in Arial Black, 24pt, with Small Caps, again in normal style without the small caps, again as plain Arial and again in 12pt.

Is there any chance that this can be solved ?

Thanks,

Chris.

MS Publisher Test Doc.pdf

MS Word Test Doc.pdf

[kenmcd]

1 hour ago, Chrisw5 said:

Is there any chance that this can be solved ?

Short answer: No  (at least not for now)
See the many other posts about importing PDFs, fonts, and OpenType features.

Long answer ...

The Publisher PDF has real small cap glyphs from the Arial font OpenType feature. 
But like other OpenType features they cannot be imported.
The actual Unicode codes behind those glyphs are for the lower case characters which it replaced.
In the Arial font the small cap replacements are un-mapped (no Unicode code point).
So for right now it is not going to work.

The Word PDF only appears to work because it is actually fake small caps.
The "small caps" are really capital letters reduced from 24pt to 19pt.
Those do import properly because they are simply capital letters - no OpenType replacements involved.

 

[Chrisw5]

Many thanks for the reply. Guess we'll just have to work round it, but at least I understand why.

On every other front I just love using AfPub, and the ability to hop between Publisher and Photo using the Studio function is amazing, and saves so much time.