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I can see that there's another post about problems with pdf imports, but I thought I'd start another, rather than hijack that one, as this is rather more generic, and concerns exports as well as imports.

We have had problems importing pdf documents using the Place tool, which I have previously reported to Affinity, with samples, but so far, nothing has changed. We have done some research, and the problems can be summarised as follows:

 

·       The first issue with corrupt PDF imports is that if the font names aren’t exactly the same in the PDF and in AP, then AP substitutes different fonts. E.g. the pdf thinks it is using Verdana,Bold, but the importing PC calls it Verdana Bold, with a space instead of a comma.

·       You can fix this by opening the PDF from File->Open where you get a chance to tell AP what the correct substitution should be. It appears to remember this substitution for future PDFs.

·       Even if you solve the font problem as above, it can still mess up the spacing, which is solved by using the Tracking command in the Character panel under the Positioning and Transform tab. It should be 0% but we’ve seen numbers in excess of plus and minus 200%. Highlighting the text and setting this to 0% removes 90% of the spacing problems but it still leaves the odd space between characters which need removing manually.

·       With one particular font we have come across, PhosphateInline, it still doesn’t look right after all that, and that problem can be solved by using the Typography panel to go from Normal to All Caps, if the text is in capitals.

 

Is there anything you can do to make this process work better ?

 

We’ve also recently experienced a problem with exporting a pdf, which we needed to do to print the page. For some unknown reason, the export process added vast quantities of red to the photos in the document (see attached files). We’ve done this many times before, with other pages, with no problems.

We're using the latest Beta, on both Windows and Mac, and these problems are common to both.

Front Cover JJ19.afpub

VV June - July19 Front Cover.pdf

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Hi Chrisw5,

If we the font in the PDF incorrectly has a comma in the name I think by ignoring this we do what I would expect when importing the PDF. If the font used to create the PDF is slightly different than the one we end up substituting with then I could see maybe some spacing issues occurring.

If you can attach the problematic PDF I can take a bit of a further look. You can upload it here if you want to keep it private

When you get the PDF export with more red on the images, what are the export settings you are using? I can see it is exported with 1.7 compatibility, did you change anything else? I can't reproduce getting a red export like you've attached so far

Thanks

Serif Europe Ltd. - www.serif.com

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20 hours ago, Chrisw5 said:

The first issue with corrupt PDF imports is that if the font names aren’t exactly the same in the PDF and in AP, then AP substitutes different fonts. E.g. the pdf thinks it is using Verdana,Bold, but the importing PC calls it Verdana Bold, with a space instead of a comma.

Does the PDF show the embedded Verdana font name with a comma like that?
Can you attach the PDF so we can take a look?
If it does have the comma that is a problem with the creating software.
The Verdana Bold PostScript name it should be using does not look like that.
It looks like Verdana-Bold as it should.

Regardless, APub should be able to recognize bad font names and make better replacement suggestions. It is pretty obvious that ID and QE are doing this.

 

20 hours ago, Chrisw5 said:

 With one particular font we have come across, PhosphateInline, it still doesn’t look right after all that, and that problem can be solved by using the Typography panel to go from Normal to All Caps, if the text is in capitals.

I am guessing that you are using the free version available for download on all the font sites.
The one I looked at is TrueType font (not OT) which appeared to a bad conversion from some other format. The Code Page info is missing and the characters are not mapped to the correct Unicode code points. This is probably the problem.
Try this fixed version: PhosphateInlineX.ttf

It has a different name so you can have both installed.
Changed from TrueType to OpenType file format, added code page info, and the characters are mapped to the proper Unicode code points.
APub should do better importing this font.

The font you have has only two lowercase characters.
They are alternates for the K and the Y.
Maybe that is why setting it to all caps helped.
But I cannot figure-out how or why that would work.

Please post your test results here.
After that I will have another better test version for you.

 

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Thank you Jon P, and Libre Office for your responses, and apologies for the delay in this reply. I will try and asnswer all your questions here.

The PDF in question is attached, and you can see that it does state that it uses Verdana,Bold. As far as I know, it was created in Windows Publisher.

I didn't change any PDF Export settings, so the ones that it used were: Preset PDF (for export); Rasterise Unsupported properties; Resampler Bilinear; Use Document resolution; Allow JPEG compression quality 85; Compatibility 1.7.

Thank you for your suggestion re PhosphateInline. I haven't had a chance to experiment with that yet, so I'll do another post when I have.

All Saints Diary June July.pdf

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The red tint I've still struggled to reproduce, so can I confirm that you no longer see that issue when exporting?

That attached PDF was created in a program called PDFsam Basic v3.3.7, and I'm not sure it did the best job embedding fonts if it's written them with a comma (it seems to do this with other embedded fonts from what I see). This seems more of an issue with the software that created the PDF than us importing it.

We could maybe do a better job detecting bad names like this and offer better substitutions, but i'm not sure I'd classify it as a bug. As you've mentioned it's easily fixed by manually altering substitutions on import or in Font Manager.

 

Serif Europe Ltd. - www.serif.com

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Jon, thanks again for the response, and I think your comments are fair. I'm happy just to have raised the question, and if it reaches the top of the to do pile at some time, that would be good.

Sadly, I can reproduce the red tinted pdf with no problem. Version 337, running on Windows 10, on a Lenovo Yoga 700. Strangely, it is specific to this page from this affpub file. We've never had this problem before, and I've just exported another colour page from an earlier edition of the magazine, on the same machine, without problem.

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1 hour ago, Jon P said:

The red tint I've still struggled to reproduce, so can I confirm that you no longer see that issue when exporting?

That attached PDF was created in a program called PDFsam Basic v3.3.7, and I'm not sure it did the best job embedding fonts if it's written them with a comma (it seems to do this with other embedded fonts from what I see). This seems more of an issue with the software that created the PDF than us importing it.

We could maybe do a better job detecting bad names like this and offer better substitutions, but i'm not sure I'd classify it as a bug. As you've mentioned it's easily fixed by manually altering substitutions on import or in Font Manager.

 

 

9 minutes ago, Chrisw5 said:

Jon, thanks again for the response, and I think your comments are fair. I'm happy just to have raised the question, and if it reaches the top of the to do pile at some time, that would be good.

Sadly, I can reproduce the red tinted pdf with no problem. Version 337, running on Windows 10, on a Lenovo Yoga 700. Strangely, it is specific to this page from this affpub file. We've never had this problem before, and I've just exported another colour page from an earlier edition of the magazine, on the same machine, without problem.

Jon, you likely can reproduce it if your RGB profile was also set to ROMM RGB profile used in Chrisw5's set up. That's probably the cause of the issue.

This is a screen shot using sRGB as the Convert profile as it displays in my PDF.

Capture_000082.png.78730744afdfa4ab3868bb0814f219eb.png

 

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With fonts not being found that have same names this could be a number of things, ttf font used and system has otf or visa versa. Also fonts from different platforms such as Mac and PC. Though the font may have same or nearly similar name there may be a difference code wise. I had this issue with PagePlus, PageMaker, Quark and Corel so it isn't unique and usually resolves itself with updating Panose substitution tables over time as you come across them.

I have had major issues converting pdfs that were Printed from InDesign rather than Exported where tracking and leading are all screwed up. My solution on those files is I simply delete them and tell the customer to supply them with export and include fonts that may not be embedded.

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Thank you all for your input.

MikeW, your screenshot is interesting, and raises a question. The preferences for my affpub files are set to sRGB. Is the Convert profile something different, and if so, where do I find it - I've looked without success.

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15 minutes ago, Chrisw5 said:

Thank you all for your input.

MikeW, your screenshot is interesting, and raises a question. The preferences for my affpub files are set to sRGB. Is the Convert profile something different, and if so, where do I find it - I've looked without success.

The PDF in the first post is using the ROMM profile:

Capture_000083.png.e8da5a3478fd21e529716236d5ea08da.png

Your APub file in the first post is set to use sRGB as you note. If I export a PDF from APub, then I get the proper output I show.

Try exporting a PDF from the file you attached to the first post (i.e., download it as a new filename to your desktop).

I've attached the PDF I produced. All I did was open your APub file from the first post and exported a PDF.

The only way I can obtain the red hue from your attached PDF is to purposefully use the ROMM or Pro Photo profiles.

Mike

 

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Mike,

That is seriously confusing. As you say, if I export a pdf from the APub file I uploaded, it works perfectly. As I couldn't see any point in uploading the entire magazine, I created that file by copying and pasting the single page from the master file into a new APub file.

However, I've double checked, and I can't find any difference between the settings (either in preferences, or the export dialogue box) in the master file, and the new one I created. What's going on ? Something must be different, because this is the only file we have this problem with. Could it be because it was created on a Mac, and I'm using Windows ? Makes no sense.

So, I've deleted all the rest of the magazine from a copy of the APub file, and left the only the relevant page. That file is now attached. For me, it exports a red pdf, hopefully it will for you, and someone can explain why.

VV June - July19 mod.afpub

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30 minutes ago, Chrisw5 said:

That is seriously confusing. As you say, if I export a pdf from the APub file I uploaded, it works perfectly. As I couldn't see any point in uploading the entire magazine, I created that file by copying and pasting the single page from the master file into a new APub file.

...What's going on ? Something must be different, because this is the only file we have this problem with. Could it be because it was created on a Mac, and I'm using Windows ? Makes no sense...

Makes perfect sense, Chris...

The file you just uploaded uses the ROMM profile:

Capture_000084.png.6db56736ff0122420348573820a1c857.png

It shouldn't be used for the image handling. Just switch it to sRGB in that drop down and all will be fine.

Mike

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4 hours ago, Jon P said:

That attached PDF was created in a program called PDFsam Basic v3.3.7, and I'm not sure it did the best job embedding fonts if it's written them with a comma (it seems to do this with other embedded fonts from what I see). This seems more of an issue with the software that created the PDF than us importing it.

We could maybe do a better job detecting bad names like this and offer better substitutions, but i'm not sure I'd classify it as a bug.

Definitely not a "bug" but will be a continuing issue with users mentioning/complaining.

I had always thought it was a standard to use the PostScript name from the font file.
It makes the most sense - a unique name and a standardized format.
And it appears most major players made the same conclusion.

I looked at how various applications Export to PDF named the fonts.
Adobe apps - PostScript Name
Any application using the Adobe PDF library - PostScript Name
QuarkXPress - PostScript Name (2017 used a library, 2018 now their own lib)
APublisher - PostScript Name
Scribus - PostScript Name
LibreOffice 6 - PostScript Name
Word 2016 - PostScript Name
Mac Quartz - PostScript Name

It appears the ones creating names with the comma are PDF libraries.
Above document - PDFsam uses SAMBox library from Sejda - uses comma
One Callas pdfToolbox documentation doc created with Prince 10 - uses comma
Help+Manual 7 documentation app uses wPDF4 library by WPCubed - uses comma

Affinity apps are going to be dealing with this forever.
The apps should know that Verdana,Bold = Verdana-Bold
Otherwise you will keep hearing ...
"It was imported by ID/QX/etc. without issues. Why can't APub do the same?"
It is a valid question (complaint).

 

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Many thanks again, to all of you. Glad I'm not alone in my concerns about fonts.

Mike, huge thanks for sorting that. So, whilst the global colour preferences are set to sRGB, the Document set up overrides it to ROMM. I've never looked at that setting before, and didn't even know it existed. Absolutely no idea how or why it got changed, but I'll make sure it doesn't happen again !

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