interactive PDF saved from indesign not displaying in all browsers properly.

[kimw58266546]

Hi all,

I have created a long document in indesign for use on the web, which I have saved using indesign's default interactive PDF settings.

The pdf is uploaded to a website where visitors can read it directly in their browser.

The problem is that I have had a report from one user only (on a PC, running internet explorer i'm guessing - waiting for more info) saying that certain lines of text within the body copy is replaced by symbols. I have checked the original indesign document, and the entire passages of text share exactly the same font and paragraph style, so i'm not sure why this would happen. The fonts are embedded as reported by acrobat, and have no restrictions.

I use a mac, and myself and my other coworkers have viewed the pdf from Safari, Chrome and firefox, and different phone platforms with no issue - the font displays correctly.

Upon very close inspection - we have noticed that the passages of text that are a problem are in fact a very, very slightly different colour, though there is no indication of why this is in the indesign document - it is EXACTLY the same as the other lines of text. Upon noticing this, I ran a font preflight test in acrobat, and have noticed in the report that the suspect passages have been replaced by a 'CID' version of the body copy font. I have no idea why it would do this?

I'm assuming that for whatever reason, the browser this person was viewing from struggled to display the CID versions of the font which is for some reason littered throughout the document amongst the regular TrueType embedded font.

On another note, whilst creating the original file indesign crashed at one point - could this have corrupted the file?

The document has many paragraph rules, bullets and hyperlinks so outlining the entire document is not really an option.

Has anyone encountered this before?

any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Kim

[Sandee Cohen]

Have you tried re-exporting and checking that paragraph?

[kimw58266546]

Thanks Sandee, yes I have tried to re-export, and from what I can tell (by the slightly off colour, as I don't have a pc browser to see the actual weird symbols the user could see) the font is still being replaced with CID version. Thanks for your reply!

[BobLevine]

The use of browsers to view PDFs is iffy at best. Beyond Acrobat or Reader, there is no assurance the PDF will work or preview properly.

[Eternal Warrior]

My only addition to this discussion is to make sure you use the accessibility checker in Acrobat after the file has been made to ensure best results.

This article gives a good starting point

Using the Acrobat Pro DC Accessibility Checker

However as most people have said using browsers to view PDF's is very iffy - where possible try to stick to Web safe fonts even when embedding and or add a disclaimer page at the front of the document recommending that users download the PDF first and open in Acrobat etc on their respective PC OS.

[Jeffrey_Smith]

Are there interactive elements in the PDF? If no, you do not need to use the (Interactive) setting when exporting a PDF. You would want to use a (Print) export setting, this will allow you to control font subsetting, which the interactive setting does not have any control over.

CID is an encoding/mapping process to handle fonts with thousands of glyphs, like Asian fonts. Non-Asian fonts can become CID encoded when exported to PDF. A down fall of CID is various PDF viewers may not interpret the unique character identifier correctly, and display a different character than expected.

One thing you can try is export with a (Print) setting and do the following: under the Advance tab > change Font Subsetting from 100% to 0%. This creates a PDF with fonts that are completely encoded, not subsetted. But, keep in mind, this does produce a PDF larger in size.

[kimw58266546]

Thanks Jeffrey,
I've used the Interactive setting because I have long URLS listed in reference sections that are 2-3 lines long (it's a scientific doc, so the journal url needs to be listed in full as well as hyperlinked). When I save using the print function it will break the hyperlinks where the line breaks are, so they no longer work and are only partial urls when clicked on. Do you know of a workaround for this to work in a print pdf? then i could try to encode. If not I may just have to accept that very old IE browsers will need to view in Acrobat, and put a disclaimer on the page somewhere.
Thanks so much

[Eternal Warrior]

This discussion reminds me of a similar forum question: Perhaps some of the answers here may be of assistance?

Entering complex URLs in InDesign as visible text

All the best,

EW