Serious Issue : Exporting Curved Text to PDF Creates Thick Lines

[Gideyo]

Greetings,

I have been using Affinity for quite some time now and have never had an issue with this before - it suddenly showed up with the most recent update and persists in all affinity programs - photo, designer and publisher. The issue is that when I export text as curves into PDF, letters like "I" and "l" (L) become thicker than they should be. As far as I know this doesn't mean that it'll be like that when printed, it is simply shown like this in the PDF. Some suggest to disable certain options within their PDF viewers, but this isn't a real solution as certain PDF's are shared among clients and various other people and having to let them know every time "hey, you should disable/enable option X" isn't efficient.

The solution to this issue was finally presented in this very old article : https://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/004301.html

Adding additional anchor points made everything work and show correctly. I have been using the same method all the time within Affinity software as well and it worked perfectly - since the last patch that is. Now, I always get thick lines no matter how many anchor points I add and now matter what option I enable or disable in my viewer. I have even tried adding a very small rounded stroke around the letter i (I) and L (l) to avoid this idea of it being a simply thin rectangle with only 4 anchor points : But it didn't help. Even worse, the letter was even more thick than before! 😱

Since this issue didn't exist prior to the latest patch and it suddenly appeared, I posted it here on the forum in hopes that someone might know what option perhaps needs to be enabled in the new version, or if it actually truly is a bug. I repeat, this isn't just a PDF viewer issue anymore, adding anchor points is completely ignored during export and the resulted exported PDF even loses all added anchor points, which means the following is happening now :

 

• You can open a brand new document in designer
• Type anything consisting of letters I, for example "I need this to work"
• Convert the text to curves
• Add additional anchor points to "I"
• Export for print PDF with no rasterization of any type. Check up, just in case, convert text to curves
• Open exported PDF in designer again
• The letter "I" is not a curve anymore, while everything else is
• This could potentially cause problems with printers who deliberately ask for text in curves

 

This should mean that there seems to exist a new bug during export to PDF. 😭

[Gideyo]

I really need help on this I can't be the only one who noticed that Affinity suddenly doesn't export rectangle letters and objects as curves anymore. I tried now exporting any drawn rectangle which was turned into curves - they all are exported as rectangles instead of curves.

Perhaps I should have posted this in the bug section?

[lacerto]

(...)

[Gideyo]

4 hours ago, Lagarto said:

I checked this and can confirm your findings: when you export to PDF, no matter which method, "extraneous" nodes at least from line segments will be removed (and additionally squares converted to rectangles). Obviously the code goes through the curves and optimizes the file, and there does not seem to be an option which prevents this. I think that there should be, and at least the "PDF (for export)" should retain vector objects intact (nodes unchanged and curves retained as curves instead of converting them to shapes).

I am not sure if using a rectangle instead of a curve can cause technical problems in printing, but I agree that removing nodes should be something that can be controlled by the designer when exporting in vector format, including PDF. 

Thanks for taking the time to check it out and confirm.

This makes me worry primarily about logo design and exportation of logos in PDF format for clients 😭

[MEB]

Hi Gideyo,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Thanks for reporting this. Regarding the rectangles (curves) the behaviour is the same as in v1.7.3 - they are converted to rectangles. Regarding text I'm seeing the same behaviour you described here some letters are being converted to shapes. I've logged the issue to be looked at.

[inkster]

Hi all,

Is there an update on this?

When I convert text to curves, all the fonts are thicker than they are when embedded.

Thanks
 

 

[Old Bruce]

11 hours ago, inkster said:

When I convert text to curves, all the fonts are thicker than they are when embedded.

Select one or more of the curves to see if there is a stroke applied.

[walt.farrell]

Also, if you're using Acrobat Reader to view the PDF there's an option that might be causing the issue. Something about enhancing thin lines. You could make sure that's off, or try a different browser.

[EmmyH]

I am finding the same problem when creating thin lines for PDFs to be used in GoodNotes or other pdf annotation apps.  It’s not about settings as the lines show up thicker in all apps and storage including Files, Dropbox, ext. 

[MEB]

Hi @EmmyH,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Do you mind attaching a sample affinity doc file that when exported as PDF display those issues for you please? I can provide an upload link if you wish to keep the file private - just let me know. Thanks.
 

[Empty Mind Productions]

I just figured out this headache. It has never happened to me before today, but I thought I would share because I was REALLY concerned! I am not sure if it is solely to do with Acrobat or if it is an interaction with the way Affinity exports to PDFs against a particular setting in Acrobat, but this ONE CHECKBOX solves it instantly with no need to modify your text after it has been converted to curves. Go into Acrobat's Preferences > Page Display > UNCHECK "Enhance Thin Lines". Problem Solved. I hope this helps everyone's issue, and I hope Affinity investigates the cause to see if it is strictly Acrobat that causes it or if it is a specific configuration interaction on Affinity's side. And I have no clue if this could cause print issues or if it is strictly a problem on screen. I am curious to test it.

[RM f/g]

This an Acrobat thing, or rather a pdf-reader thing.

I had to remind people to uncheck ‘Enhance thin lines’ as well back in the days when I exported from inDesign and Illustrator.

[Empty Mind Productions]

17 minutes ago, RM f/g said:

This an Acrobat thing, or rather a pdf-reader thing.

I had to remind people to uncheck ‘Enhance thin lines’ as well back in the days when I exported from inDesign and Illustrator.

It's just strange that the issue came up only on my last project. I've had similar workflows, and never encountered this issue until I went to export my most recent project. I wonder if Acrobat was recently updated and reset this setting. I have no explanation for the sudden change otherwise. And I thought it might be possible it had something to do with Affinity (though not its inherent fault, I mean) because I very recently updated it, and I hadn't had to export anything since the latest patch. Chalking it up to "Strange $#!t".