PDF XChange Forum

I have a font called NewLetterGothic that I purchased and use regularly. For some reason it does not display or print properly in the Editor. The letters p, e, s & o are stretched out. These letters display fine in the Viewer and in Acrobat 7. Please see attached. It is noticeable even at fit width magnification. It is easily seen at higher magnifications. Happens in Windows XP or Windows 7. Any idea what the problem could be?

Thanks.

Hi Arnold,
I see this on windows 10 as well, although it is very subtle.
I have no clue about the cause here, but Ill make a ticket about it.
If you can find a more heavyset instance of it happening, please let me know here so I can report that as well.

Hi Arnold,
Can you send us the original document this has happened in so we can actually compare on the results from our end?
If you save it in PDF-A format the font will be embedded so we can still view it.

Hello Arnold,
I've just been informed that the ticket I had created in regards to this issue (#4306: Font slightly stretched in height on curved letters) has been rejected as our current handling is how the font is intended to render.

Best Regards,

Sorry I have not replied to your posts, I have been on a project out of town for weeks. Before I left, I had intended to prepare these files to send over (see attached zip file). In preparing them today, it appears to be mainly with the file created using priPrinter. The problem disappears if the same priPrinter file is viewed with the Viewer or Acrobat. It appears to also be less obvious at higher magnifications in the Editor.

Thanks.

Myself, I am not able to reproduce the problem.

Probably this is because I do not have the NewLetterGothic font installed on my computer.

I do not know if you have the possibility to verify on a computer with PDF-XChange Editor where that font is NOT installed ?
In that case, do you still see the problem ?

In the Properties pane in PDF-XChange Editor, you can see the 'Actual Font' and 'Actual Font Type' when the 'Page Content'-box is selected.
In the "PDF Xchange Lite.pdf" (on my computer) the font has been replaced by AdobeSansMM, in the other two PDF's it is NewLetterGothicTT.
I can see the difference between the fonts AdobeSansMM and NewLetterGothicTT, but I still do not see the 'stretched out'-problem.

When you click into the text, you can see the Text Property 'Use Embedded Font' (Yes or No).
When I change/switch this setting, I do still see no difference.

Maybe you can post a few screenshots to show the problem?
This might be of interest to other forum-readers too.

If the problem is really PDF-XChange Editor related, you can maybe insist to a further investigation on the reason why.

Regards.

Hello Arnold,

Just like Willy I am unable to see the problem - even with the files where the font is embedded (in this case it will not matter if you have the same font installed Willy, and I believe when a font is embedded it is always used - I could not find the "yes/no" option you mention). For me the letters look OK at 100% zoom (on a 111-112 DPI screen) and at higher zoom levels.

We will need screenshots from your machine where the problem is visible so that we can ensure we see the same at our end Arnold!

Regards,
Stefan

To see the "Use Embedded Font" property, you must:
- activate the Properties Pane (via View > Other panes)
- then click Edit > Text (in the Classic ribbon)
- click onto a text-box (you will see the Page Content Properties)
- finally click into the text itself (at that time you will see the Text Properties)
- the very last property in that list is the "Use Embedded Font" property
(instead of Yes/No it is True/False, but that is almost the same )

To have "all" the font features available, I still believe that you should have the font installed in Windows.
Mostly the embedded font in a PDF lacks the full information.

As sorry as I am to write this, but Editor's font rendering remains to be somewhat flawed, especially where vertical alignment and height is concerned. It's overall tendency to render many characters a bit larger in height compared to Adobe Reader is great for screen reading, but it's tendency to render rounded characters different in height to square ones is not pleasing to the eyes.

In your True Type example this happens with T, 4 and 5 characters (among others) are lower in height than their neighboring h, 6 or 0 characters. This does not happen with the Type 1 example, though. In Adobe Reader all of these characters are rendered at the same height and the difference between True Type and Type 1 example is only part of their line strength. Both programs display different spacing between True Type and Type 1, but this may be because of how the documents were created.

Just another reason why I keep using Adobe Reader for printing anything that needs correct output of fonts and colors.

Hello all,
Thank you for the extended discussion, however as I've mentioned before, Unless we can find a more heavyset instance of this occurring, enough so that it is clearly an issue, this ticket has already been rejected.

The way that the NewLetterGothicTT font renders in the Editor is how this font is intended to render, meaning that yes, while Adobe may force it to be more clean-cut, we do not intend to change this in the PDF-XChange Editor. We always try to respect the method that is intended to be used, and do our best to adhere strictly to the PDF spec. While to my knowledge there is nothing stating that we must render fonts exactly as intended, It is a development decision that we plan to stick with.

Arnold, That does mean that in this case, you may need to use another font, like the alternatives Willy has mentioned.
Timur, This does mean that in some cases, there may be alternative tools you wish to use for niche things like this.
We respect your wishes, and were it not a case of "this is how its meant to be", we certainly would be working to change how this is handled. We must hold ourselves to a standard of respect for these documents as well, to ensure maximum compatibility between our software and any competitors that our clients may also use.

This still begs the question why the Type 1 version keeps all characters at the same height, while the True Type version increases the height of (curved) characters? This is inconsistent at least, I would say even bugged. I noticed this uneven character height with various documents/fonts in the past already.

Type 1: True Type:

Here are the screen shots. Over here, this pdf looks different when viewed in the Editor and the Viewer on both XP and 7 machines. The very first word in the screen shot "This" has an "s" at the end that looks different. Using another font is not something I am going to do. I used the original mono spaced Letter Gothic font in proposals for a long time, and then switched to this modernized version from Paratype a number of years ago.

Thanks for looking into this. I am trying to make time to investigate more, and will approach Alex over at priPrinter also.

Both ZIP files contain one version that uses gray-scale antialiasing and one sub-pixel (Cleartype) antialiasing. So they are not directly comparable. The second ZIP file contains examples that are different in zoom level, too.

I used the PDF to do a comparison between Editor and Adobe Reader at 200% and 1200%.

Thank you Timur and Arnold for your tenacity and focus on this.

It turns out that the ticket was rejected because initially the example did not have the NewLetterGothic font embedded and it was only text as curves.

The samples and excellent work in detailing the issue shows us that we are indeed rendering this font incorrectly. This appears to be caused by the FreeType libraries we use for TrueType fonts.

We will investigate further what we can do with this. The ticket has been re-opened.

I hope that helps.

The issue is fixed now, and the fix will be available in build 327.0 we are expecting to have released later this month.

Thank you.

I do wonder what you meant by writing that the letter "s" of the first word "This" is different? At least on Windows 10 Editor render this "s" quite close to how Adobe Reader renders it. Although differences are still discernible curved parts at least the height is the same.

Thanks for the follow up Timur!

I am also not really able to see any significant differences under Windows 10, but our devs did notice them, and as mentioned above a fix has been found and will be applied with the next build.

Regards,
Stefan

In this case the differences are present but subtle, whereas the differences in height with some characters always were rather obvious.

Hi Timur,

Yes it's a subtle difference in this case - but even though - it will be fixed for next build!

Cheers,
Stefan

Thanks for that and hopefully the fix also includes the obvious size differences.

I believe all differences are fixed.

enjoy.

Timur Born wrote:This still begs the question why the Type 1 version keeps all characters at the same height, while the True Type version increases the height of (curved) characters? This is inconsistent at least, I would say even bugged. I noticed this uneven character height with various documents/fonts in the past already.

This is "fixed" in 327 by activating Text Hinting (by default). I do wonder, though, why hinting affects the True Type version, but not the Type 1 version (no visible changes)? Or rather, why does the True Type version need hinting, but the Type 1 version does not?

This is "fixed" in 327 by activating Text Hinting (by default)

No, the fix was implemented in a deferent way Text Hinting is and was activated by default from the very beginning of the Editor.
What was changed, is the way we use FreeType library to render or outline glyphs.

I do wonder, though, why hinting affects the True Type version, but not the Type 1 version (no visible changes)? Or rather, why does the True Type version need hinting, but the Type 1 version does not?

These both formats are too different and use a different approach for hinting and I'm not the person who can answer that question 100% correct. In short, TrueType fonts have a special set of instructions executed for each glyph no matter the size of the glyph, while Type1 fonts provide a bit more information about glyphs components.

All I can say is that with hinting disabled a 6 still is bigger than a 4 or 5 in the test document, but only for True Type. But at least hinting solves that now.

Well, I am glad that the Issue is solved.
Have a good one!

Ivan - Tracker Software wrote:

This is "fixed" in 327 by activating Text Hinting (by default)

No, the fix was implemented in a deferent way Text Hinting is and was activated by default from the very beginning of the Editor.
What was changed, is the way we use FreeType library to render or outline glyphs.

I still wonder why hinting has to be enabled for True Type fonts to remain at consistent height then? Why is a 6 larger than a 4 and 5 with the True Type font when hinting is disabled, while the Type 1 font works without hinting? I would like to understand this rather than just enable hinting without knowing its implications.

I still wonder why hinting has to be enabled for True Type fonts to remain at consistent height then? Why is a 6 larger than a 4 and 5 with the True Type font when hinting is disabled, while the Type 1 font works without hinting? I would like to understand this rather than just enable hinting without knowing its implications.

I spent some hours today trying to find where the problem is, and it seems the issue is inside FreeType2 library we are using for accessing glyphs data. I will contact with the library developers and hope they will be able to fix the issue.

Thanks for the hard work, Ivan! It's well appreciated!

As others have noted, the rendering of the Editor 327.0 with hinting disabled matches that of the Viewer. I originally posted about the font New Letter Gothic in the OP and then again on September 5th. The Viewer has always rendered this font perfectly. The Editor has to have hinting enabled to render it in a similar fashion.

The problem for me is that all other fonts are rendered better by the Editor without hinting enabled. All fonts look good in the Viewer to my eyes, without exception. Is it possible for there to be a specific problem with New Letter Gothic and the Editor?

Thanks.

Hello Arnold,

It certainly is possible, and we are handling each font with these issues on a case-by-case basis. The best thing that you can do to help us, is to provide screenshots showing the current "Auto" handling, and the current "off" handling, along with a 1 page sample document, and the font pack of the font that you find is specifically affected in this case.

Have a great day!

I will try to do some more testing and get something together. When I use Auto for Text Hinting over here it fixes rendering with this font, but makes Arial look crunched and dark. Seems to be on 2 computers with both Windows XP and 7. In another thread Ivan did some testing and not see this on your end. In the industry I work in Arial seems to be used for a very large majority of surveys, reports, etc.

Thanks.

Hello Arnold,

Thanks for offereing to prepare those tests! We would be happy to hear your feedback once you've done the testing, and if you have any good samples - please share them with us so that Ivan and other devs could have them at hand when testing here at our end!

Regards,
Stefan