"a"'s filled out????

[Henriette W]

Okay, this time I have a really odd issue...

I have just exported my Aff Publisher document to pdf format. On two pages I have written text in Palatino with the exact same style, yet on exporting to pdf, the text on the two pages look very different. As you can see from the attachments, the first page in pdf is working just fine, yet on the other page, the "a"'s are some "filled out" with black.

What happened here? I have never seen that before. I have tried putting the same text on another page, I have tried breaking the link between the two text boxes, but nothing works.

Any help is vastly appreciated as this publication is supposed to be printed soon.

[Henriette W]

Just figured it out. 😄

Outline style was, for some odd reason, set at 0,1.

[GarryP]

14 minutes ago, Henriette W said:

Outline style was, for some odd reason, set at 0,1.

Can you explain that please? (I’m not aware of an “outline style” that can be set to a decimal value, or set of decimal values, and I don't see how changes to any Stroke/outline setting would only affect the letter 'a'.)

[Henriette W]

5 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Can you explain that please? (I’m not aware of an “outline style” that can be set to a decimal value, or set of decimal values, and I don't see how changes to any Stroke/outline setting would only affect the letter 'a'.)

The setting is under "decorations", and yes, I was surprised too. Also, one could not see it in Aff Pub - not until exporting it to pdf did I spot the problem. That being said, I later noticed that it is actually visible in the pdf preview.

Fact remains - after I reset the outline to "0", the issue went away. Very bizarre, I agree.

[GarryP]

Thanks for the clarification.

That looks like it might be a bug to me (if the export looks different to what's on screen), but not one I can replicate.

If you can share the document then we can experiment with it to try and understand what’s going on, but I can understand if that’s not possible.

[Henriette W]

4 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Thanks for the clarification.

That looks like it might be a bug to me (if the export looks different to what's on screen), but not one I can replicate.

If you can share the document then we can experiment with it to try and understand what’s going on, but I can understand if that’s not possible.

It's a pretty big document, but I'll isolate the page in question - and maybe duplicate the page and reconstruct the error. Would that work for you?

[thomaso]

47 minutes ago, Henriette W said:

Outline style was, for some odd reason, set at 0,1.

The characters in your screenshot also show a kind of shadow or 3D-effect. – What unit was the 0,1 "outline style" (px, mm, in, …)?

However, there must be another reason for the filled areas of the 'a' exclusively. Can you repeat this occurrence with a different font?

I don't get a similar look, even with a stroke + outline effect, but just obviously bold characters as expected.

[Alfred]

25 minutes ago, GarryP said:

I don't see how changes to any Stroke/outline setting would only affect the letter 'a'

I don’t see how, either! In particular, why would it affect a and å, but not æ, e, ø, or the two-storey g?

[Henriette W]

3 minutes ago, Henriette W said:

It's a pretty big document, but I'll isolate the page in question - and maybe duplicate the page and reconstruct the error. Would that work for you?

Okay, here it is - the Aff Pub file as well as its exported pdf-file. On page 1 the outline is set to 0 and on page 2 the outline is set to 0,1.

10-kopi outline issue.afpub 10-kopi outline issue.pdf

[Henriette W]

4 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I don’t see how, either! In particular, why would it affect a and å, but not æ, e, ø, or the two-storey g?

It gets even weirder... I experienced no such issue with Times New Roman - but I certainly did with Palatino.

[Henriette W]

8 minutes ago, thomaso said:

The characters in your screenshot also show a kind of shadow or 3D-effect. – What unit was the 0,1 "outline style" (px, mm, in, …)?

However, there must be another reason for the filled areas of the 'a' exclusively. Can you repeat this occurrence with a different font?

I don't get a similar look, even with a stroke + outline effect, but just obviously bold characters as expected.

The unit is pt (point). Apparently it makes all the difference. I tried Times New Roman when I saw this happening and the result was nothing like this. Apparently Palatino is more... sensitive?

[Alfred]

8 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Some characters in your screenshot also show a kind of shadow or 3D-effect.

Well spotted, Thomas! It’s very obvious when you zoom in, not so much at normal size (but I can see it now that I know it’s there). When I do zoom in, it becomes clear that the effect doesn’t look exactly the same each time.

[thomaso]

Just now, Henriette W said:

Apparently Palatino is more... sensitive?

Rather broken or corrupted. If you are able to reproduce the issue with Palatino: Do you still get it if you deinstall your Palatino + reinstall it?

[Henriette W]

9 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Rather broken or corrupted. If you are able to reproduce the issue with Palatino: Do you still get it if you deinstall your Palatino + reinstall it?

That would be from my Mac system files, yeah? No, I haven't tried that yet. Could be, though.

[thomaso]

9 minutes ago, Henriette W said:

That would be from my Mac system files, yeah?

Yes, fonts get installed system wide – but, theoretically, the font cache may be corrupted in Affinity only. In the Affinity app preferences (mac, V1) is an option to reset fonts. You can try this first … or just reset the font cache for the entire mac without harm by booting in Safe Mode + rebooting normal.

Also make sure there aren't multiple font files installed of Palatino, just to avoid potential font conflicts and/or a corrupted font cache.

[Henriette W]

8 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Yes, fonts get installed system wide – but, theoretically, the font cache may be corrupted in Affinity only. In the Affinity app preferences (mac, V1) is an option to reset fonts. You can try this first … or just reset the font cache for the entire mac without harm by booting in Safe Mode + rebooting normal.

Also make sure there aren't multiple font files installed of Palatino, just to avoid potential font conflicts and/or a corrupted font cache.

Thanks. Yes, checked the mulptiple font thing already, but just reset Aff fonts - yet the issue persists.

I wonder, by the way, if the issue is also visible in an actual print. I'll try printing the page in question later.

 

[Alfred]

9 minutes ago, Henriette W said:

I wonder, by the way, if the issue is also visible in an actual print.

Your PDF viewer should show the pages exactly as they will print. I’ve just exported a test page of my own to PDF, and there were no artefacts visible when I printed it.

At være eller ikke være.pdf

[Henriette W]

4 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Your PDF viewer should show the pages exactly as they will print. I’ve just exported a test page of my own to PDF, and there were no artefacts visible when I printed it.

At være eller ikke være.pdf 76.93 kB · 0 downloads

Yes, it should, shouldn't it? But you never know...

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, Henriette W said:

Yes, it should, shouldn't it? But you never know...

Well, all I can say is that I’ve never known it to fail! Exporting to PDF and checking the result in your favourite PDF viewer is a great way to avoid wasting expensive ink/toner and paper.

[Henriette W]

5 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Well, all I can say is that I’ve never known it to fail! Exporting to PDF and checking the result in your favourite PDF viewer is a great way to avoid wasting expensive ink/toner and paper.

Yes, I agree. I have a printer and use it about twice a year.

[thomaso]

5 minutes ago, Henriette W said:

Yes, it should, shouldn't it? But you never know...

That's why a print test 'actually' does not help much. You can't be sure that the issue does not occur in other print processes (e.g. a print service).

Also, instead of printing you could just open the PDF in Affinity and check if the filled 'a' area appears as an object in the layers panel. If yes, it will be printed (hopefully, otherwise their would be a separate issue).

[Henriette W]

4 minutes ago, thomaso said:

That's why a print test 'actually' does not help much. You can't be sure that the issue does not occur in other print processes (e.g. a print service).

Also, instead of printing you could just open the PDF in Affinity and check if the filled 'a' area appears as an object in the layers panel. If yes, it will be printed (hopefully, otherwise their would be a separate issue).

Unless my screen display is the problem - then a print test would definitely shed some light.

[thomaso]

1 minute ago, Henriette W said:

a print test would definitely shed some light

… but on your specific print result only. Not on the culprit of the issue + not on the print result for others.

[Henriette W]

5 minutes ago, thomaso said:

… but on your specific print result only. Not on the culprit of the issue + not on the print result for others.

True - but in my case, my specific print is all I need. 😄 Either way, it looks like my issue is a local one. Maybe the most time saving thing I can do now is simply avoid the outline setting altogether.

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, Henriette W said:

it looks like my issue is a local one

You might like to try viewing and printing the PDF file that I attached earlier. Or, indeed, the Designer file from which I exported to PDF: the fonts I used were Times New Roman, Palatino, and Rethink Sans.

At være eller ikke være.afdesign