PDFs Printing in gibberish

[Benjamin Weill]

So, I'm having an issue where the text from PDFs (exported from VW) print as gibberish. The text in the PDF is correct, there's no problem with it on the screen - only when printed.

I have a Brand New - 1 week out of the box - Brother All-In-One printer.

Attached are pictures of both the PDF on Screen and PDF on paper.

Is this a printer issue? Is this a VW issue?

Thanks

[michaelk]

Are you using an unusual font?

What happens if you try making the pdf which ever way you didn't make this one? (Mac OS print dialog vs VW publish)

Very strange.

mk

[scho047]

I am having the same problem with Ben. Can anyone help with work-around please?

What I have noticed is that if I do - Print / Save as PDF, then the printed PDF has text come out correctly as it should. However, if I use - Export PDF, then the texts gets all broken up.

Can someone help out with a solution please?

I have used Helvetica Text which is one of the common font type. I am also on MAC.

Thanks

[scho047]

Hi, seems to have answered my own question here.....

When you do Export or Publish as PDF, there is a small option - Rasterize Text. With this option ticked, it prints fine now and is legible. Within the option, it states that when zoomed on a screen, it may lose a bit of smoothness but I can't really tell any difference and most importantly it works on paper!

Hope this helps! (kinda chuffed that I found this as a rookie!)

[Benson Shaw]

I see this too when Publish to pdf. Doesn't seem to be font specific. PDF looks fine on screen (Adobe Reader or Preview), letters all stacked up when printed from Adobe Reader and Apple Preview.

Print/Save as PDF (MacOS process, not VWX) results in file that prints OK in Adobe Reader and displays properly on screen. But this requires separate Save for each sheet layer.

Rasterize text during Publish solves for print, but that means text is not a font on screen, no select/paste text to other docs.

There is a way to make it work with a dbl save, but can't remember exact steps. I think it is Publish to PDF from vwx with all pages saved to one pdf, Open in Preview, then Print/Save as PDF from Preview. Have to to test.

-B

[Benjamin Weill]

Thanks all! I'll try the "Rasterize" option tonight. I'm not that concerned about the text being selectable in PDF - It'd be a nice perk, but it's not required. more important is printed clarity.

What is strange, is that the PDFs seem to print fine from other machines - My boss has never commented on a funky print on anything I've sent him.

I generally use the "Publish" method as I'm usually working on multi-page documents.

Thanks

[Benson Shaw]

Bumping this to support another thread in General topics about Publish.

I'm still having trouble in Publish with text. On screen display is fine, but prints garbled. Now I think it IS font related. Some fonts rasterize, others stack all characters on 1st position of a string. Printer is letter size Dell 1760nw "laser".

Stacked text is Arial. Font Book validates it all green.

Version Version 5.01.2x

Location /Library/Fonts/Arial.ttf (active copy)

Unique name Monotype:Arial Regular:Version 5.01 (Microsoft)

Manufacturer The Monotype Corporation

Font Book also shows a disabled Arial (MS Word font folder)

System/Library/Fonts shows several Arials including an Arial Unicode ttf and an Arial ttf plus various bolds, roundeds, italics, etc.

Don't see source of my active Arial. I think it came installed in this MBP purchased late 2014.

2 stupid workarounds:

1. Save every sheet via Print to PDF and compile in Preview. = Big file.

2. Open the Publish pdf in Preview, Save as Postscript file, Open the PS in Preview, Print to PDF. Text not garbled, all text is rasterized. = Big file.

-B

Edited August 9, 2016 by Benson Shaw

[rDesign]

This same problem just happened to me.

 

In Vw2016 I used File > Publish to print a PDF of my permit set and before I sent the PDF out to be printed I checked the PDF in both Apple Preview and Adobe Acrobat — everything looked fine. When I picked up my printed sets, I saw that several of the sheets were complete gibberish.

 

EDIT: I thought the font being used was Helvetica, but for some reason it had been changed to 'System Font Regular' (which in 10.11 El Capitan is 'LucidaGrande.ttc'.

 

Scan of printed hardcopy showing gibberish:

 

Screenshot of PDF of same worksheet:

 

I have sent in a VSS support request regarding this.

Edited November 30, 2016 by rDesign

[BG]

Have the same issue printing PDF's created in VW on an iMAC.  Printing the PDF's using ACROBAT prints the text in Gibberish,  however when the same document is printed using PREVIEW, the PDF's print fine. So I always print using PREVIEW obviously :-)

[rDesign]

I just did a test with both Acrobat and Preview and both applications printed that offending sheet just fine on my in-house 11x17 HP LaserJet, so I don't think that fully explains the problem, at least in my case

 

I have to send all my full-size prints out to be printed by my reprographic service provider so I can't control what software they print it with.

Edited November 30, 2016 by rDesign

[PVA - Admin]

This is normally a font handling issue, but can be worked around entirely by using "Rasterize Text" in the PDF export options as well as in the Publish options.

To fix it properly however, I believe the font needs to be validated/repaired and checked to make sure it isn't a very old version or otherwise unsupported font: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21404?locale=en_US

[rDesign]

@JimW- thanks for the reply.

 

Short of rasterizing the text in the exported PDF, would exporting as PDF/A-1b files reduce the chance of printing gibberish as that format embeds all of the fonts? 

[PVA - Admin]

That would be a solid guess, but I have not tried it with a user before.

[Benson Shaw]

Another thing to look at is the Adobe Reader version.  Preview was displaying the text OK, but AR showed stacked up letters.  I update Preview with the MacOS updates, but had an old version of AR (I turn off the auto updates).  Updating AR to current version seemed to solve the pdf display issue. At least I have not run into it since.

Edit - Actually, I should say that Preview and AR both displayed the text correctly on screen, but printing was the problem - Preview usually printed same as display (haven't seen any issues with Preview recently). AR printed the text all stacked up.  But update the AR to current version and print is same as screen.

 

-B

Edited December 1, 2016 by Benson Shaw
print/display clarification