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Why does Acrobat allocate more width for spaces than for alphanumeric characters?

Jul 16, 2012 9:17 PM

Categories: Windows

When I convert a text file to PDF using Acrobat X Pro, I select a fixed-width font.  However, it appears that Acrobat allocates a greater width for space characters in the text file, than it does for alphanumeric characters in the text file.  How do I instruct Acrobat to use exactly the same width for all the characters, both spaces and visible characters?

 

This question is actually a re-write of my previous post titled, ‘Bulk Convert Text to PDF with Acrobat’.  I know what the problem is now but do not how to fix it.

 

Here's a mock example of the content of a text file.  In the resulting PDF, the H no longer lies directly under the G.  I chose Courier New 8 pt for the font.

 

    ABCDEFG    ABCDEFG    ABCDEFG    ABCDEFG    ABCDEFG    ABCDEFG

          H          H          H          H          H          H

 

Any suggestion will be appreciated.  Thank you.

 


990 Views   13 Replies   Latest reply: paulatdeakin, Jul 23, 2012 5:12 PM
 
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  • Bill@VT
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    1. Bill@VT,
    Jul 17, 2012 1:58 AM   in reply to paulatdeakin
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    Check your fonts in the PDF to be sure you have a fixed font used that is embedded. I just did it in NotePad with AA9 and the results looked fine with an embedded Courier.

     
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  • Test Screen Name
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    2. Test Screen Name,
    Jul 17, 2012 4:44 AM   in reply to Bill@VT
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    This ties in with another post. The conversion is Create PDF > From File > Text. Settings in HTML conversion for Courier New. I can confirm, the effect varies with the point size but is consistent.

     
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  • paulatdeakin
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    3. paulatdeakin,
    Jul 18, 2012 5:21 PM   in reply to Bill@VT
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    Thank you Bill.  Can you please let me know where in AA9 you set the embedding?  I haven't been able to find this in AA X Pro.

     
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  • AbhigyanModi
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    4. AbhigyanModi,
    Jul 20, 2012 12:27 AM   in reply to paulatdeakin
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    I would recommend printing the text file from Notepad to Adobe PDF printer. That should get everthing rightly aligned.

     
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  • Bill@VT
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    5. Bill@VT,
    Jul 20, 2012 2:10 PM   in reply to paulatdeakin
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    Generally the embedding is done at the time of creation. If you use the print or press job settings, most fonts will be embedded unless they are not licensed for embedding. The Std job settings does not embed several fonts and that may be your problem. If you want to embed the fonts, there is a preflight script for doing that. In my test, I printed from Notepad.

     
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  • paulatdeakin
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    6. paulatdeakin,
    Jul 22, 2012 4:51 PM   in reply to AbhigyanModi
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    Yes, the Adobe PDF Printer driver works perfectly.  The problem is that it doesn't handle batch conversion very well.  When over 300 text files are spooled to the driver, Windows crashes.  Thanks for your suggestion.  I am now looking at different methods of queueing the files for printing to PDF.  I'd never imagined that the bulk conversion of text fiels to PDF could be so problematic.

     
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  • Bill@VT
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    7. Bill@VT,
    Jul 22, 2012 9:34 PM   in reply to paulatdeakin
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    If you are comfortable with the settings in the printing, then go back to the PDF Maker settings (create PDF preferences in WORD) and adjust the preferences for similar performance, at least in the job settings and such. The rest deals with how much you want the bookmarks and such.

     

    I am assuming that those PDF Maker preferences set in WORD are retained when you run the conversion from Acrobat that I have the impression you are doing. Other than that, check the conversion settings in Acrobat itself. They are in the preferences. If you the printer preferences are used when converting from Text (you will have to try to see what happens), it would use the default preferences of the printer, not those set in the print menu of an application. The latter only last as long as that application is open and only for that application. For your need, you may need to change them in either the printer (Start>Printers.. in windows) or Distiller, or both. The printer overrides the Distiller settings usually (another setting on this).

     
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  • paulatdeakin
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    8. paulatdeakin,
    Jul 22, 2012 9:44 PM   in reply to Bill@VT
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    Thank you Bill.  The 300 files that I want to convert to PDF are text files (.txt).  My understanding is that Adobe's HTML Conversion Engine is used to create the PDFs.  I am able to choose a font in the settings for the HTML engine.  I am starting to accept that this engine has a rounding error of some kind.  In contrast, the Adobe PDF Printer driver creates a perfect PDF file, but it doesn't have the Bulk Conversion ability of the HTML engine.  Distiller is not involved because it requires a postscript file as input.  Interestingly, if I open and then save one of the text files in WORD and then distil to PDF, the result is also perfect.  It really does seem that the HTML engine does not handle spaces correctly.

     
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  • paulatdeakin
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    9. paulatdeakin,
    Jul 22, 2012 9:50 PM   in reply to AbhigyanModi
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    Just wondering - do you know why it is that the Adobe PDF Printer Driver can convert a text file perfectly, but when I initiate the conversion from within Acrobat X Pro, the spacing is incorrect?

     
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  • AbhigyanModi
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    10. AbhigyanModi,
    Jul 22, 2012 10:41 PM   in reply to paulatdeakin
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    When printing, the layout is specified by the application that is printing. It shows you the content and prints exactly what it shows you.

    When directly converting, Acrobat's internal engine does the conversion which does not know your intent very well. For a typcial text file, it needs to relayout the text to suite the paper size and font it has in its default. It does a good job of relayouting the text for most text->pdf conversions but isn't really optimzied to handle/predict such  fixed formatting.

     
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  • paulatdeakin
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    11. paulatdeakin,
    Jul 22, 2012 10:50 PM   in reply to AbhigyanModi
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    Thank you AbhigyanModi.  I think I understand now.  I have been expecting Acrobat's internal engine to output exactly what is in the text file, but it is not designed to do exactly that.  I will stick to Adobe PDF Printer and attempt to determine the best way to send multiple files to it.  Hopefully, I can do it programmatically.

     
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  • importavip
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    12. importavip,
    Jul 23, 2012 4:49 AM   in reply to paulatdeakin
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    Im trying the same

     
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  • paulatdeakin
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    13. paulatdeakin,
    Jul 23, 2012 5:12 PM   in reply to importavip
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    I'll be interested to hear how it goes. Are you using Acrobat X Pro?

     
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