Didot Bold + Reader = Problem?

Question

Didot Bold + Reader = Problem?

I just finished creating an entire brochure using Didot and it looks just fine in pages or in Preview, but when I create a PDF (doesn't matter how), in Didot Bold, every single letter "a" shows a slight baseline shift when you open the file in Reader, giving a rather drunken appearance to the text. Is this a known problem wit Pages 2? If so, I guess it's better than the drop shadow problem, but gee…

EDIT Example:

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1lUecwzi6TFrOFYtAj7BYmEskuUpM7

Haven't looked at in windows yet, but it does this in all versions of Reader on my mac.

iSight iMac 2.1, flat panel imac 700, ibook G4 1G, Performa 6116CD, Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Posted on Feb 26, 2006 8:20 PM

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Answer 1

Peggy

Level 8

41,655 points

Feb 26, 2006 9:55 PM in response to Barbara Brundage

I'd see what it looks like in Reader on Windows. I have a pdf flyer from Apple that has a couple of letters in two places in the URL at the bottom (it's big) that are magnified (kind of like the Dock effect) when viewed or printed with Preview but are just fine in Reader 7. It was originally saved from the Reader 6 plug-in in IE on Windows at work.

Peggy

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Answer 2

Feb 27, 2006 2:33 AM in response to Barbara Brundage

Same result in Acrobat Reader 7.0 for Windows XP.

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Answer 3

Feb 27, 2006 8:45 AM in response to SermoDaturCunctis

Thanks, Magnus. Time to file a bug report and decide whether I want to totally redo the brochure. 😟

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Answer 4

Feb 27, 2006 10:54 AM in response to Barbara Brundage

The only question is who shall receive the bug report. The lower a appears if you create the pdf from TextEdit as well. Likewise if you create is as an export from Adobe InDesign. In InDesign, you can even see the lower a in the font sample in the font menu. The "a" in "sample" is clearly lower than the other letters for Didot Bold. I think the culprit is the font manufacturer Linotype.

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Answer 5

Feb 27, 2006 10:58 AM in response to SermoDaturCunctis

Hmm, that's very interesting, Magnus. Thanks for the info. Interestingly I don't see it in pdfs created from appleworks or PE/PS CS, so it's evidently only in cocoa apps that this happens.

Ah well, my type 1 copy of the President font only works correctly in carbon apps (no spaces in cocoa), so I guess it all balances out.

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Answer 6

Feb 27, 2006 11:10 AM in response to Barbara Brundage

Curious. It happens to me. In Appleworks I even see the problem in the document itself, and it definitely appears in the printed PDF. I wonder if the information is cached somewhere in my system.

Or it might be cached in your system. As Appleworks allows bold even of fonts without bold typefaces, it perhaps can create a "correct" bold from the regular typeface?

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Answer 7

Feb 27, 2006 11:12 AM in response to SermoDaturCunctis

s Appleworks allows bold even of fonts without bold typefaces, it perhaps can create a "correct" bold from the regular typeface?

I would guess that is what's happening, since there's no way to specify the true bold in Appleworks. I am using an older version of appleworks, 6.2.4, and I believe that post script rendering is handled a bit differently in 6.2.9, which might explain the difference.

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