So, this is probably a fairly basic question, but after searching for a couple of hours I cannot figure out how to fix it, so here I am.
I have a document in InDesign where each of the pages has a fairly simple design–a single image fills the entire page; there is a rectangle with a fill of white set to a 93% transparency covering part of the image, and text on top of that rectangle. The font I am using is a standard Windows font–Calibri–so there are no font licensing issues.
When I export the pages to PDF, the text is reproducing poorly. The majority of the text looks too thin/spindly, and where I have used italics the reproduced font is extremely jagged and pixelated. It almost looked like I had tried to create a quasi-italic font by skewing the text…but Calibri includes an italic face.
In randomly trying different things to fix this issue, I used the outline fonts clean-up function in Acrobat DC, and lo and behold, this solved the problem. Suddenly the fonts in my PDF looked the way they were supposed to. My deliverables include both a printed version of the document (from our office printer–not professionally printed) and a PDF version–the two versions need to look the same whether the client is reading the hard copy or the on-screen PDF.
This is the first time I have experienced this problem, even though I have used similar page designs in the past. My guess is that it is related to the transparency and/or color management. After reading the last issue of the InDesign Secrets magazine, I made some changes to my color management settings, and although I thought I understood all of the ramifications, maybe not.
I would be happy to share my InDesign file, and the PDF pre- and post-outlined fonts if it would help in troubleshooting–but I am hoping that one of you InDesign gurus out there will read my description and say “Oh, Melise, there is a super simple fix for that…” and I won’t even need to provide examples.
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