Why does my PDF look so CRAPPY when I print through acrobat???

[Guest]

I have been having troubles with exporting a PDF from an Indesign file.. when I printed the exported PDF from acrobat, text was printing out very pixelated. I was exporting the file in indesign as a press quality pdf. The text looked fine when I viewed it in acrobat and zoomed in, but when I printed it out it looked very pixelated and not as black as it had when I had printed the file directly from indesign.

so this is what I've figured it out so far... I was exporting to PDF in indesign then opening it in adobe arobat pro and printing from there... for some reason when I went into my advanced print settings in acrobat, it was set to "print as image: 100 dpi." I changed it and it printed out better but not perfect. To double check it was adobe that was causing the issue, I opened and printed the pdf through mac preview. This looked perfect - - exactly like it did when I printed through INDD.

So my questions are, 1> WHY does it automatically printing as an image 100 dpi in adobe? and 2> how can I change this setting so when my client opens it up, they dont have to mess with any of the print settings to get it to look how it's supposed to? Is this a setting I can change when I save the file? I want to make sure it prints out correctly because one of the fonts used is ultralight and can look very very light if printed incorrecty. It looks perfect when I print through preview, but even printing as an image in 600 dpi through acrobat pro, the ultralight font looks lighter and more faded than it should (and than it does in the preview and INDD printed files). If i unselect the "print as image" checkbox, the ultralight text looks better but still not perfect. So that would make my second question >> WHY is the print quality worse when I print through adobe, and how can I remedy this? Any ideas??? Any help much appreciated!

**using acrobat pro 9.4.6 on mac osx 10.6.8

[Dave Merchant]

The PDF file itself does not control the "print as image" preference, which should always be turned OFF unless there's a specific need to rasterize the entire page, and is turned off by default in all Acrobat and Adobe Reader installations.

What's the filetype for the ultralight font and what export setting* are you using in ID? If you're exporting to earlier than PDF1.7, OpenType fonts will be converted and may experience some small changes in shape if their hint definitions aren't done right.

*As a side note, bear in mind that InDesign does not use any part of Acrobat when exporting PDFs, so questions specific to that stage in the process should be posted to the InDesign forums.

[Guest]

Hey Dave thanks for your reply.

I don't think it is an issue with the export setting or any part of ID (I had originally posted there), since the same exported PDF prints fine in preview. It is only in acrobat that the fonts seem extremely light. I am using a TT font, and have exported the PDF in High Quality Print and Press Quality, both of which have had the same issue.