David Allen Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 Hello, when exporting a PDF from Publisher, I've noticed very poor text rendering when viewing in Acrobat. The quality improves and the letter forms (in this case Franklin Gothic) look more natural once zoomed in, but you have to zoom a long way. The dots in "i"s are joined to make them look like "l"s and the curved parts of letters like "s" look particularly awful. Attached is a spread from the original in Quark which is superiour, as well as a version made in Publisher. I've gone for standard settings for the PDF. I'd like a smooth transition to Publisher, but I fear my client will not be too pleased when viewing a proof PDF made in Publisher. Any tips? Thank you. Publisher – digital high quality.pdf Quark – screen medium.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 (...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Allen Posted July 18, 2020 Author Share Posted July 18, 2020 Hello Lagarto, thanks for looking. Oh that's odd. Both made on the same machine. I'll check if I've go other versions of Franklin lurking somewere. Only one family is running in Fontbook with no duplicates reported though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Allen Posted July 18, 2020 Author Share Posted July 18, 2020 So I disabled the Franklin Gothic that was running and replaced it with a newer OTF version I have (Acrobat says it's a Type1 font, I thought OTF was different?). Publisher actually made a much cleaner PDF than the Quark original. So a nice result there! But I keep getting a warning in Publisher that Franklin Gothic Book is missing. When I click on "Locate" in Font Manager nothing changes. Any advise welcome. Publisher – digital high quality 2.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 (...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 Many/most otf fonts are not hinted and/or have minimal hinting and rely on the various OS font subsystems to hint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 OTF fonts are a type 1 Postscript type. Some OTF fonts are TTFs wrapped in an OTF container (for lack of a better phrase). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Allen Posted July 18, 2020 Author Share Posted July 18, 2020 Ah there's a familiar name and icon, Mike W! So OTF could be either T1 or TTF just to add to the confusion. The point I'm at now is that I thought I'd cleaned out old Franklin Gothics. Disabled them from Fontbook and put any other copies in trash so they are out of the picture. Then loaded the new OTF version, which makes a lovely PDF with very crisp characters even at smaller sizes (attached in previous post). Do either of you have any ideas why Publisher is not able to locate Book despite it being part of the new family added, all fonts verified? And if I say "ignore preflight" it will make the PDF anyway and appear well rendered as well as Book being listed in Acrobat. Only the latest PDF has the new OTF version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 (...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 The apparent missing weight could be a messed up internal name issue. Does book show up in QXP? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 30 minutes ago, David Allen said: Ah there's a familiar name and icon, Mike W! Nice to see you here, too! David Allen 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Allen Posted July 18, 2020 Author Share Posted July 18, 2020 Font management is just Apple's Fontbook. Just opened the QXP original and no font warnings. It also made the PDF with the new OTF family including Book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 (...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 From my side, this is likely my last post of the day...about ready to pull off the packer brisket I started at 4am on the smoker... I believe there's a Q preference for font encoding. I may be wrong. Probably am. I'm hungry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Allen Posted July 18, 2020 Author Share Posted July 18, 2020 OK, thank you both for the input so far. Way past my bedtime here, so I'll pick up on this soon. I'm hoping someone at Affinity can shed light on Publisher is not able to locate a font that's there. And QXP can see! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 (...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 (...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 10 hours ago, Lagarto said: The fact that Quark created PDF shows fonts that use TrueType outlines (whether in legacy fonts or OpenTypes) as Type 1 fonts probably means that same fonts have been used in both PDFs. I really do not know what Quark does here and could not find any setting that specifies how fonts should be embedded in PDFs. ... The setting I was remembering is in the Settings.xml file located in the application folder. The line I was remembering is: <FontStyleSettings AllowFauxStyles="false" PreserveTrueTypeFontsInPDFOutput="true"> I am uncertain the effect if that statement in bold above was changed to false. (Though I do know the effect of the first part of that statement when changed to true...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 (...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Allen Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 My concern was how the original was rendering in Acrobat Reader. As all my clients will be viewing proofs in Reader only. And probably older versions on steam-powered PCs! Attached are two screen shots for comparison. And if I can ask another question in this topic (or should I start a new one?), is now I have loaded the new OTF version of Franklin Gothic, I am still getting a warning about Book missing in this document. I made a new clean test spread and placed some Franklin Gothic Book text, made the PDF and no warnings – so all good there. Then I went back to my report with all the styles already set up and "edited" body copy character style to be the new Book (despite it saying it was already there), and still on opening and making PDF's I have the warning. It works but it's a worry or at least an irritant! Any ideas how to force the document to "see" what it is seeing, but doesn't know it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 (...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 (...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medical Officer Bones Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 As far as I am aware, Truetype fonts are defined using quadratic bezier curves, while Type 1 fonts are created using cubic bezier curves. The latter has more control points, and the former less. Converting a Type 1 font to a Truetype is a lossy process, and information is lost, and such a conversion should be avoided. Anyway, in my experience PDF readers render T1 fonts generally better than TT fonts. OTF fonts can contain either format (as MikeW pointed out), so an OTF is no guarantee for a high quality font. And TT fonts may include hinting, which is again lost in a direct TT-->TT conversion, which leads to issues as well. Many free fonts online are poor conversions from their original source files. I checked the original document in PDF Exchange viewer, and the result is as expected: the TT version looks pretty bad in comparison to the T1 Quark document. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Allen Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 41 minutes ago, Medical Officer Bones said: As far as I am aware, Truetype fonts are defined using quadratic bezier curves, while Type 1 fonts are created using cubic bezier curves. The latter has more control points, and the former less. Converting a Type 1 font to a Truetype is a lossy process, and information is lost, and such a conversion should be avoided. Anyway, in my experience PDF readers render T1 fonts generally better than TT fonts. OTF fonts can contain either format (as MikeW pointed out), so an OTF is no guarantee for a high quality font. And TT fonts may include hinting, which is again lost in a direct TT-->TT conversion, which leads to issues as well. Many free fonts online are poor conversions from their original source files. I checked the original document in PDF Exchange viewer, and the result is as expected: the TT version looks pretty bad in comparison to the T1 Quark document. Thank you, this is useful info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Allen Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 5 hours ago, Lagarto said: Try to find and replace all occurrences of non-found font using the Font Manager (under the Document menu), or Find and Replace with formatting. There might be references to old fonts also in the styles. So I checked Font Manager once more and it says Book is missing. I clicked on the only button available "Locate" and nothing happens. I'm not allowed to substitute font here, so I'm not sure what this box is for. Even when I tried another font that's in the document Locate, just shows me where the font is in the document, but doesn't allow any more than that. Perhaps I'm missing something here?! Moved on to Find and Replace, ah now this looks promising. But! Whichever I choose here: Format or various character or paragraph styles I'm told at the bottom "no results found". This includes fonts not listed in pre-flight as missing. Thoroughy baffled now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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