PDF Font Issues since upgrade

[Amanda Priano]

After downloading VW18, I’m having trouble with my fonts changing between VW and PDFs when using the Publish command. I'm only trying to use Arial & Times New Roman... nothing fancy, so it's not a font error. If I create a PDF by using File > Print > Save as a PDF, there aren't any issues, so it seems to be a publishing issue. I can select the option to Rasterize, which makes the font spacing appear correct, but it causes the text to thicken and look rather murky.

 

Anyone else having this issue? Any suggestions? I've been back and forth with tech support, but they're unable to duplicate my problem using my file.

 

[PVA - Admin]

Easiest method is mostly likely to select "Rasterize Text" in the Export PDF Publish options.

If not, and if the issue can't be replicated on another Mac, it often means its a problem with the font installation but not the font itself, and in that case I would recommend validating through FontBook: 

 

[Amanda Priano]

Thanks Jim. I've tried both of those things. The rasterizing still leads to a look that isn't quite right. And I've done the font validation with no success.

 

[Art V]

What I have noticed from time to time is that viewport updates can mess up text when it comes to heigh and width, most of the time it either gets narrower for some reason, or both narrower and taller and then it looks really squeezed.

 

Most of the time this happens to existing viewports when a new design layer is added, but it can also happen spontaneously if there is rotated text in the drawing. Selecting those text, change the size and then change the size back to what it shoudl be usually fixes this. Occasionally I need to replace the text with new text item.

 

I don't know it the underlying cause is the same but you could try changing all affected text items of the same font size to a larger or smaller font size and then change it back to the original font size. Repeat for all affected font sizes. Maybe that might solve the issue in your case too.

[Martin]

I am definitely having the same problem. This is what Tekton Pro looks like when it is exported to .pdf. I would really like an explanation/solution since my client prefers this font and the rasterized version is fugly

[PVA - Admin]

This issue has now been confirmed by engineering and is scheduled to be corrected in a service pack, however I do not know if it will make SP2 or if it will come in SP3.

VB-146704

[Art V]

23 minutes ago, Martin said:

I am definitely having the same problem. This is what Tekton Pro looks like when it is exported to .pdf. I would really like an explanation/solution since my client prefers this font and the rasterized version is fugly

What you can try as a temporary solution before exporting until the fix is available is select text of the same size with the magic wand tool, increase or decrease the font size and then set it back to the correct font size. That should in theory get the text back to normal spacing/proportions.  You may lose tracking settings though as it may revert to default tracking.

[Amanda Priano]

VW18 seems to be causing some issues with the font library - Font Book on a mac. We've had to go into Font Book, validate all the fonts, remove the ones with issues, then restart. For some reason, there were a lot of duplicates that seemed to be causing issues. Even after that, I had to delete the fonts I'm using in VW18 even though they didn't come appear to have issues in Font Book, and then reinstall them. Since doing that, I haven't had any issues.  Hope that helps.

[Martin]

Thanks Amanda. I'll give that a try.

[Boh]

I'm also having a similar issue. I have just upgraded to VW2018. On opening a 2016 file in VW2018 I find much of the text font has changed from our office default Arial Narrow to Arial.

 

Some worksheets are effected but the worst is 100 or so space objects with labels that now have arial text instead of arial narrow. Looks terrible. I have updated the label symbols in the Resource Manager to use arial narrow but the spaces themselves haven't updated and still show arial. If I click on the settings of a space object then just close the dialogue again the space seems to reset and shows arial narrow but I have to do this one at a time - it doesn't work on multiple spaces at the same time.

 

As mentioned there are about 100 of these spaces... Any suggestions welcome!

 

Edited March 20, 2018 by Boh

[Boh]

I found a way to work around the space label font issue... If you select a bunch of space objects, toggle off one of the "show leader line" tick boxes in the OIP then toggle it straight back on again it resets the labels with the Arial Narrow font.

Pleased I found a way to do it but surely this is a bug?

[Art V]

Yes it is a bug somewhere, as this is something that has been happening for years, though it doesn't happen all the time, just once in a while in a drawing. I've never been able to exactly pinpoint the cause but often it happens with text in symbols or in groups that are rotated, but not always.

 

I guess this lack of repeatability makes it hard to fix.

[Boh]

Yes thanks. And the other bug being that you can't do multi space object edits with the settings button on the oip...

[Amanda Priano]

I'm mac based: I've not had this problem since running a font validation and deleting all of the bad fonts. Somehow vectorworks was duplicating fonts and they were corrupt... or something like that. It seemed to clear everything up.

[Boh]

Does editing the font mappings in the tools>Options>preferences dialogue make any difference to these sort of issues ? Will see, ive just changed mine so all fonts map to aerial narrow.

[Art V]

43 minutes ago, Boh said:

Does editing the font mappings in the tools>Options>preferences dialogue make any difference to these sort of issues ? Will see, ive just changed mine so all fonts map to aerial narrow.

No, the font mapping only specifies which unavailable font should be replaced with which available font, it has no effect on the installed fonts as that is controlled by either Windows or the font management utility if you are using one.  So if the installed fonts are somehow somewhat corrupted the font mapping has no effect on this issue (unless you specify a totally different font to be used if it is currently using a corrupted font).

[joelhufford]

I know this is an old thread, but for anyone who comes across it, I was also as of September 2018 (and VW 2018 SP4) still experiencing this bug. Very happy to report that VW2019 SP0 appears to have addressed this issue - specifically with Tekton Pro! 

 

 

[UDB]

Dear All. I'm still experiencing this issue on VW2019 SP2 today. When I export or publish, I get blurry rasterised text (ever other detail is raster sharp). I'm deducing that this must be a VW issue as when I print and 'save PDF' through the print dialog the text comes out fine. Any thoughts appreciated. Mac User late 2015.

[PVA - Admin]

2 hours ago, UDB said:

Dear All. I'm still experiencing this issue on VW2019 SP2 today. When I export or publish, I get blurry rasterised text (ever other detail is raster sharp). I'm deducing that this must be a VW issue as when I print and 'save PDF' through the print dialog the text comes out fine. Any thoughts appreciated. Mac User late 2015.

Does the text still appear blurry in the export if you enable Rasterize Text in the PDF export options?

[Amanda Priano]

Jim, I had this problem with VW18. Go to Font Book in applications. Select all the fonts, then select File > Validate Fonts. This will identify any non-validated fonts and you can remove the checked ones. I also manually deleted any duplicate fonts. Be sure to restart VW after running through that.

Basically what VW told me was that the program was creating duplicate, bad font files which were causing issues. I haven't had the issue since. Hope that works for you!