Thick letter L in pdf

[Phil_W...@adobeforums.com]

Hi Again

when i export an indesign file to pdf, any letter L's in the text appear to be very thick and stand out like a sore thumb. is there any reason for this and is it possible to ge rid of this problem.

thanks in advance

Phil

[Kar...@adobeforums.com]

From my experience it doesn't appear to print differently to normal. Have you tried printing?

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

Does it change if you zoom in or out? Many times horizontal or vertical strokes will appear to change weight depending on the zoom factor due to the need to use whole screen pixels. Rounding the ratio of stroke weight to resolution at a particular zoom level can cause things to either appear extra thick or disappear entirely on screen.

Peter

[Kenneth...@adobeforums.com]

Every font, or just one particular font? Prints that way or just looks
bad on screen? Capital L or lower case l?

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

[Phil_W...@adobeforums.com]

Hi Guys

Thanks for getting back. As i am a newbie i dont fully understand the functionallity of indesign yet. The problem started when i was first using illustrator to make flyers for my company to go on the website. In answer to Kenneths response yes it does print ok and it is the lower case l but it shows up on the website. I think i may have figured it out in indesign though. The problem accured when i copied and paste from illustrator directly into indesign. When i write diretly in indesign the problem does not occur. Any reason why it does it in ai and not idd. very confusing.

to answer peter it stays proportionate to the rest of the text when zooming in and out therefore thick no matter where the zoom lies.

thanks for stopping by

[Kenneth...@adobeforums.com]

I can make this happen only if I make a single letter l, convert it to
outlines, and then copy it and paste it into Indesign.

Is it possible you're seeing this with fl (ligature) combinations only?

I want to know if your thick letter ells in Indesign are text or
graphics. What happens if you use Find/Change to search for the letter
l? Does it find the thick ones, or does it skip over them?

And you didn't answer my question: every font, or just one particular font?

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

Hi, Phil:

Peter Spier's reply (#2) is correct, but he doesn't explicitly note that it's an Acrobat or Reader display issue, not an ID error.

In Acrobat Preference > Page Display > Rendering, there are some options that may be helpful in reducing the effect.

HTH

Regards

Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

Peter Spier's reply (#2) is correct, but he doesn't explicitly note that
it's an Acrobat or Reader display issue, not an ID error.

I guess I thought that was implicit. Thanks for mentioning it. :)

[Dov Isaacs]

Every time I've seen this problem, it has been due to someone converting text rendered via fonts to text rendered by "outlines." Solution is simple - don't "outline" text unless there is some type of special effect that you need that can only be achieved in that manner (and there are very few of those).

- Dov

[boblevine]

Copy and pasting of formatted text from Illy to ID will result in the
text being converted to outlines.

Bob

[Carole_G...@adobeforums.com]

I work for a scientific organization. We usually receive images from our authors with the fonts in graphics converted to vector. When we import the images into InDesign, then create a pdf for proof, these graphics ALWAYS show thickened els and ones, no matter what the font was originally.
If you zoom in about 300%, they will appear correctly, but that's an annoying thing to tell people to do all the time. The pdfs are posted online, and the authors want to see their figures looking correct within the page without this awful distortion.
I've called tech support at Adobe, but no one has an answer. If someone has a work-around, I'd be glad to hear it.

Carole

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

Is it really restricted to the single glyph, or just more noticeable there? Converting to outlines removes the font "hinting" and invariably makes type look bolder.

I suppose these come in as a variety of formats, some of which may not support font embedding. The best answer is, if possible, embed the font and don't convert to outlines. If that's not possible, you should consider opening the figures in Illustrator (presuming these are files that will open there), and resetting the type.

Peter

[Ken_...@adobeforums.com]

Do all fonts do this? Some fonts are more compatible with rendering in pixels than others, especially at small sizes. I
am having a constant battle with an organisation that insists on sending promotional e-mails with 8pt Helvetica which
always looks terrible because the characters adust left or right of their optimum position and so text has clumps of
characters rather then smooth spacing. Switching to a font designed for viewing on a screen, like Trebuchet or Verdana
may help. Even the switch from Helvetica to Arial is a noticeable improvement.

k

[Carole_G...@adobeforums.com]

That's interesting. I can try a few tests and let you know. Thanks for the suggestion. Helvetica is our most frequently used font for figures. We may have to re-think that if what you're saying is true.

Carole

[Ken_...@adobeforums.com]

That's my personal view. The best thing you can do is to try it and see if it makes a difference for you. I'd be
interested to know.

I have come to accept thickened vertical strokes in PDFs as inevitable at low magnification, particularly with sans
fonts. If you think about how few pixels you have available to render the shape of a character, even with hinting and
anti-aliasing, it becomes clear that something's got to give. So fonts that have been designed expressly for viewing on
computer monitors seem likely to have some advantage.

k

[Thomas_...@adobeforums.com]

This problem occurs only when ALL of the following things are true:

- the font was converted to outlines

- the glyphs in question were drawn simple rectangles with no additional points. In a sans serif font often the lowercase el and sometimes the numeral one can be drawn this way.

Seeing a problem may also require that in Acrobat's Preferences > Page Display > Rendering, "enhance thin lines" is on. But I'm not certain of that one.

The font being "designed for viewing on screen" or the like will NOT help, except insofar as that design involves more complex shapes for the el and one.

Regards,

T

[El...@adobeforums.com]

Hi all.

I stumbled upon this problem at work about 5 months ago as well. After days of troubleshooting & searching on the internet, I found the cause & a fix to the problem on this page:
<http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/004301.html>

This is a rendering bug with Adobe Acrobat/Reader. It only display it as a thicker stroke but it prints fine. If you open the same file on a Mac via the "Preview" application, the problem goes away.

By turning OFF "Enhance thin lines" in Adobe Reader's preference, you can eliminate the display problem. But since the files I was working on will be distributed to thousands of people over the internet, this was not an option for me.

If you have Illustrator, the solution would be to add a point to the vertical strokes of all the lowercase "i" & "l". It's a pain & can be time consuming but it works.

Hope this helps.