[PLUG] Acroread Changes Typeface

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Thu Mar 17 00:08:31 UTC 2016


On Wed, 16 Mar 2016 16:00:58 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> dijo:

>On occasion I receive (or download) pdf files that display with the
>correct serif typeface using mupdf. But, when viewed with acroread the
>typeface is changed to a thin stroked, san-serif one that's difficult
>to read.

Acroread installs for itself a handful of default fonts. It is
substituting its own (probably) Helvetica for a font in the PDF that
the creator of the PDF failed to embed. 

Failing to embed fonts used in the document into the PDF is an
extremely common error. Moreover, the creator of the PDF can't tell
that the font is not embedded because the PDF does display correctly on
the creator's computer - because the font is installed on that computer
so Acroread has no problem displaying it there. But move the PDF to a
computer that does not have the font installed and Acroread will have to
substitute one of its default fonts. 

Why there is a difference between mupdf and Acroread is less clear to
me. I have never even heard of mupdf, but my best guess is that it has
a different set of default fonts.



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