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delanyd
delanyd
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Illustrator to PDF--letter "I" looks weird

Jun 23, 2012 8:35 AM

I'm doing a freelance job in Illustrator and exported as PDF. The client is FIXED on some of the sans-serif capital letter "I"s looking too wide or tall or prominent on screen.

 

funky-eyes.gif

 

I've seen it happen plenty of times before, and it always looks fine in print. I'm guessing that after converting to outlines, the "I" becomes a rectangle, and for some reason that's rendering a little differently on screen. It used to bother me but I'm so used to it now, and because the printed piece never has a problem, I don't worry about it anymore.

 

And the client is just plain old NOT letting go of it.

 

Does anybody know of some online resource that explains this phenomenon that I can show the client?

1743 Views   5 Replies   Latest reply: ChristaT., Oct 10, 2012 7:32 AM
 
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  • [Jongware]
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    1. [Jongware],
    Jun 23, 2012 8:48 AM   in reply to delanyd
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    > ... after converting to outlines ...

     

    It's a screen artifact, that's all. If you zoom in, the effect gets less and less pronounced.

     

    It is a screen only-artifact because rectanlges are drawn "as usual" (whatever that means) but fonts, on the other hand, get an extensive hint-treatment to suppress the visible side effects of a conversion to a very small number of square pixels as much as possible. That's why it gets "less bad" when you zoom in -- of course there still is some rounding up or down, but only in the single pixel range, and the more pixels you have, the lesser they influence the total view.

     

    All said and done, is there a *good* reason you are converting your text to outlines? If that's not an absolute requirement (and for good reasons, not "because the printer doesn't trust Fonts"), try making a proof with fonts included.

     
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  • delanyd
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    2. delanyd,
    Jun 23, 2012 9:06 AM   in reply to [Jongware]
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    [Jongware] wrote:

     

    >  is there a *good* reason you are converting your text to outlines? If that's not an absolute requirement (and for good reasons, not "because the printer doesn't trust Fonts"),

    Heh! I seem to have run into only printers who don't trust fonts--dating back to the days of PowerPC chips and SyQuest cartridges. Some habits just lock and lock in tight.

     

    Let me see if your phrasing works with the client... thanks!

     
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  • shunithD
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    3. shunithD,
    Jun 23, 2012 10:17 AM   in reply to delanyd
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    delanyd wrote:

     

    <snipped> sans-serif capital letter "I"s looking too wide or tall or prominent on screen.

     

     

    As Jongware says, it's a screen artifact. Not just 'I' but also 'i' and i think 'l's (ells) get affected. View 100% and it's no problem. Print and it's no problem...

     
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  • Monika Gause
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    4. Monika Gause,
    Jun 23, 2012 11:23 AM   in reply to shunithD
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    No. It may be more than a just a screen artifact. Acrobat sometimes thinks it has to enhance these thin lines. There's a setting inside Acrobat, to not do that. On top of that you could (after converting type to outline - if you really think you need to do that) add one anchor point to the rectangle that forms the I or the l. Then Acrobat knows that it isn't just a line, but a rectangle.

     
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  • ChristaT.
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    5. ChristaT.,
    Oct 10, 2012 7:32 AM   in reply to Monika Gause
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    This has been a challenge in the past.  Then found that setting the art up in the following manner takes care of the problem every time.  It is simple, thankfully!  Christa

     

    PDFsuccess.JPG

     
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