PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/spac

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HansS
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PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/spac

Post by HansS »

See screen shots - it may also be a problem of the document, but as you can see "Acrobat Reader 11" shows the document right (I suppose) and the Win10 PDF-App and SumatraPDF show the document at least with correct spacing.

PDF-XChange Editor "PDFXEdit6_Portable.zip" v6.0.319.0 in Win7-64-Ult SP2

PS.: I have screen shots, but after click on "Add the file" an upload window is shown, but I don't see it in this ticket - hopefully the attached example PDF file is really accepted.
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wrong_font_in_Foxit_and_PDF-XChange.pdf
Reduced version of one of the documents which are shown incorrectly.
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HansS
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by HansS »

... why are *.png not allowed - very bad, but I try in *.7z ...
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screen_shots_wrong_font_in_Foxit_and_PDF-XChange.7z
Screen shots
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Patrick-Tracker Supp
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Patrick-Tracker Supp »

Hi HansS,

Thanks for the post. I think png are not allowed because spam bots were posting inappropriate images several years back, and I suspect this has simply not been changed since. We are actually updating our forums to a newer system soon.

I am seeing some spacing issues with this file in Adobe reader as well. I think the issue may be within the file itself, but as you pointed out there is some variation. Could you give us a breakdown of what has been done to the file? I am not really seeing any clues as to why it looks this way.

Thanks!
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi Hans,

Is the issue with the font presentation? I see very a minimal difference in spacing, even in the screen-shots.

From what I can see, the fonts aren't embedded and this can often cause a difference in the presentation of the file on different systems, or even on the same system between different readers. This is because if the font is not embedded and not installed on the system, we're forced to subsitute that font for another. There is nothing in the ISO spec. what fonts should be used, as there are far to many to describe. We simply pick a font that we know of that we believe most closely matches those used.

Please try recreating the document and embedding the fonts, then advise on how it displays.

Thanks,
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

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HansS
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by HansS »

Hi Patrick.

1. For me the wrong spacing is a problem - I would not say "minimal differences". If words are optically split in several pieces, the document is hard to read. Other PDF viewer do much better rendering in this case.

2. The problem are documents from my bank - so I can't change the document. I can try to convince the IT department of the bank, that they should not create such "bad" PDFs.

Regards
Hans
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

Thanks Hans,

font substitution is always a tricky business. From your screenshots I'm seeing Microsoft's Viewer being very different from both Adobe and PDF-XChange, which in my opinion render very similarly.

I can talk to the development team about how we choose the font we do and it that can be improved but this comes with no promises as to whether we will actually change anything.

Good luck with the bank! That would be the ideal solution to make their documents truly "Portable", however it will increase the size of the files and they may not wish to do it.

hth
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HansS
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by HansS »

Hi Paul.

I don't know the technical details, but obviously Adobe Reader knows that the missing font is best replaced with fixed spacing font. Maybe the replacement in PDF-XChange could "simply" prefer to use correct spacing before correct "serif/sans serif" property!?

I contacted the service of my bank and suggested do stop using unusual fonts in general (as it makes no sense - only problems), and to generate PDF/A - but I don't expect to see some change soon... So let's hope that the Tracker development team can improve the font substitution in not so fare future.

Regards
Hans
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Timur Born »

Both Adobe Reader and XChange Editor substitute the documents font with the "Adobe Sans MM" (Multiple Master) font. Since this is not a font that can be licensed or downloaded I don't know how Tracker came up with their version. There are some minor and one major difference(s) between the file being viewed in Acrobat Reader and Editor which makes spacing look so strange in Editor.

The minor difference is that some (!) upper-case letters and all smaller case-letters except "i" and "l" are smaller in height in XChange's version. All letters seem to match in widths between Adobe's and XChange's version.

The major difference is that letters "Ll" and "Ii" are are left aligned in Editor while they are center aligned in Adobe, same applies to "," and ".". There is lots of spacing around these letters in Adobe, too, but in Editor most of the spacing is to the right instead of both sides. So I would say that XChange's version of the font needs some fixing.

Curiously XChange Viewer uses different fonts for substitution which is the easiest on the eyes in this example. It would be nice if users could set subtitution fonts themselves via preferences.

From Adobe's forum:

"For fonts such as Helvetica, Times, and Courier, Acrobat has the “smarts” to use system fonts Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier New respectively since they generally have identical set widths to the original fonts. Missing ITC Zapf Dingbats are replaces with Adobe Pi, and for anything else using a Western Latin character set, Adobe Sans or Adobe Serif is used depending on whether the original font was a san serif or serif style. These two Multiple Master technology fonts have the capability of matching the set widths of any other Western Latin font."

"Adobe Sans is not available for the use you want it for. As previously indicated, Adobe Sans was derived from the older Multiple Master version of Myriad. The closest font to Adobe Sans now is Myriad Pro."
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hi Timur,

Thanks for your input in this case.
Indeed we were displaying the letters 'i' and 'l' aligned to the left.
A colleague has already made some changes in the code that will center those, and it has now been passed to our testers. If all testing goes well - this fix will be available from the next build of the Editor.

Regards,
Stefan
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Timur Born »

Hi Stefan,

thanks for the information. Don't forget about "." and ",", too. ;)
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Patrick-Tracker Supp »

Hello Timur Born,

Unfortunately, because I was not the one to bring this to the dev team, I do not know which developer to follow up with regarding "." and ",".

I have contacted Stefan privately to follow up with the developer assigned to this task. We will let you know what we find.

Thanks!
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Willy Van Nuffel
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

Please also take note that there is something wrong with the presentation of particular characters in the replacement font.

Some are likely "sans serif" and others "serif", like p q x y in lowercase and j l o p ... in uppercase (see attached PDF).

Note: When the attached PDF is shown by Google Chrome's internal PDF-viewer, you do not see the problem.
That is why I also included an image of what I see in PDF-XChange Editor.

Thanks.
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Replacement font - fixed width.pdf
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Timur Born
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Timur Born »

Why is this even mono-spaced in Acrobat and XChange? The original font (AdoneSansMM, Myriad) isn't mono-spaced, is it? My HP printer offers a PS substitute font for AdobeSansMM that is not mono-spaced. Really don't know, just curious.
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

When your file is rendered in Adobe Acrobat it produces absolutely the same result as the Editor. So, there is rather a problem in Chrome's internal viewer ;)
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

Like Timur Born, I am wondering why the replacement font is "fixed width"/"mono-spaced".

In fact, most of the available fonts are variable-width, except a few fonts, like "Courier New" for example.

I do not know if there is an indication in non-embedded TrueType or OpenType fonts that defines if they are fixed-width or non-fixed-width. If there is such a property, then it would be good to have a replacement font for each of them (in cases where the original fonts are NOT available on the computer where the PDF is to be displayed).
Last edited by Willy Van Nuffel on Mon Jan 23, 2017 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

In the /Width table of the font many used characters have width 0, and in this case, they are substituted with a monospaced font.
Also, please note incorrect /CapHeight and /StemV in the FontDescriptor dictionary.
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

Still something to tell about my example file posted earlier.

When re-verifying the reason for the mix of serif and sans-serif characters, I now see that the reason for this is a mix of RFont3 and Courier New. Sorry for this ...
On the other side, I do not succeed to insert the mentioned characters like p q x y in RFont3-font in that same paragraph. Is this an other problem that should be resolved ?

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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Timur Born »

I think the reason is simply because these chars are not part of the original text and the font likely is only partly substituted (aka only those chars that are used).
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

Font is not embedded, so, partial substitution has no sense.
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Re: PDF-XChange Editor shows some documents with wrong font/

Post by Timur Born »

I also just noticed that some of the capital letters that are substituted properly as sans are also not part of the original file. So there doesn't seem to be any direct correlation.
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