InDesign CS (I know) problem

[critter]

First, this is my first post so be gentle.

I work at a medium sized newspaper and we've been dealing with a problem that involves InDesign CS (I know, it's ancient but it's what I'm stuck with) and placed .pdf ad files.

We have a random problem with characters dropping out of placed .pdf files when we print them. Our workflow is to use placed .pdf ad files on an InDesign CS document and that is printed to postscript. The .ps files are dropped into a NewsExtreme workflow system where they are ripped to a .tif file on a Harlequin 7.2 version RIP before going to our CTP devices.

Here's the scenario. Same designer, same workstation, using InDesign CS. He printed 3A for state edition and it's fine. He printed 3A for city edition and the letters I, J, K, L drop out of 2 ads. Both ads are built in house and are placed .pdf files on the InDesign document. Same characters in both ads but they are 2 different fonts, Helvetica in one and Avant Garde in the other.

I tried to duplicate it today. Of course it would not do it for me. We used his log on with the same workstation, document, etc.

Any ideas? TIA!

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

I am not entierly surprised. If you have a PDF generated from a newer PDFlib than InDesign CS uses you may have problems with the placed PDFs and fonts. You may find that if you have Acrobat 9 pro you open the problem PDF's and save them as eps before placing them you will circumvent the issue. What you do is make the files "more ancient" than your version of InDesign

 

[critter]

I understand.

My problem is that this only rears its ugly head about every six months and every time it happens no one catches it until it's published. Newspaper is an immediate business so there's no "do overs" for us. I'm trying to eliminate it up front. Unfortunately, I can't duplicate it to trouble shoot the issue. I was hoping someone here might have experienced the same problems back in the days of CS1 and might have a work around.

In the past this has happened to us with ads built outside our system and delivered in a .pdf format. Those that failed to print, dropping characters like this, always had sub-set fonts. We began using PitStop server to detect ads with sub-set fonts and convert fonts to outlines on the inbound leg of the workflow. That seems to have eliminated it for those ads.

This most recent episode were ads built in house. The fonts are fully embedded according to the information in the properties window using Acrobat 9.

Frustrated.

 

[pcmodem]

What application is creating the ads built in house?

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

Do you have font management software? What flavour PDF are you using (PDFx1a?)? Do you use a preflight on your adds (eg one for adds?)? Is it bound to a specific computer (same setupp on different computers? PC and/or Mac or both?)? Can be a cache problem, computers are too stable ( ;p ) and need to be restarted every now and again to clear the caches.

 

[Shawn]

I've seen this kind of issue before. It could be related to mixing subset and fully embedded fonts on a page with certain older methods of making PDFs. In our case there were two PDF files placed on a page. Both were using the same font but one was subset and one was fully embedded. The internal font name was exactly the same on both files, so when the page was ripped, the subset version happened to be processed first. When the second PDF was processed the rip saw that that font was already embedded and didn't embed it again. Since the subset font didn't have all the characters, the second version came out with missing type.

My guess is, in the ad with your missing type, the font Avant Garde was used someplace else on the page and was subset embedded.

The solution is to set your workflow so that fonts are either always completely embedded or always subset embedded. You'll find that incoming files from clients tend to have more subset embedded fonts, so that may work better. You can set your preflight tools to look for fully embedded fonts and subset them if necessary.

If you ever look at a PDF and notice that some of the fonts are subset, and named with additional characters like "Helvetica+ADGTCHGT" insead of just "Helvetica" that's one way of avoiding this problem that PDF creation programs will sometimes do. They tack extra characters onto the name to make sure it doesn't interfere with the fully embedded versions.

This kind of issue can also happen if you place EPS files with fonts embedded, although not as often.

Shawn

 

[Shawn]

Hi Critter

I just saw your reply on 7-21 and see that you're already on the same track mentioned in my previous post. One other thing to check is to see if the issue happens when you send .ps for just that page or for the entire doc. If you're sending the .ps for the entire doc, an instance with a subset font on a previous page could be affecting the ads on that page.

Even if you set IND to completely embed fonts when making the .ps, in some cases it will still subset. I believe that it happens when using OTF fonts with large character sets.

What happens if you make a PDF in Distiller of the offending page? Do you still get the drop out? I know that Acrobat has the option to send fonts on a page by page basis when printing .ps, but I don't know where you'd set that InDesign CS1.

This has come up a couple of times before, so you're not alone.

http://printplanet.com/forums/prepress-workflow-discussion/12843-fonts-embed-complete-subset

http://printplanet.com/forums/prepress-workflow-discussion/14392-fonts-font-management-pdf

Good Luck
Shawn

 

[rob.barnes01]

This may not be the most elegant way to solve this problem, but I implemented it at a newspaper I worked for about 5 years ago and they're using it to this day:

In InDesign, create a new transparency flattener setting. In it, check the box that says "Convert Text To Outlines". Save it as whatever you like.

Next, create a new print preset which utilizes your new transparency flattener setting. Also, tick the "Simulate Overprint" box in the output window. Save your new print preset and use it whenever you are generating an ad PostScript or PDF.

The result should be a PDF with all fonts converted to outlines.

Good luck!

 

[maas]

This may not be the most elegant way to solve this problem, but I implemented it at a newspaper I worked for about 5 years ago and they're using it to this day:

In InDesign, create a new transparency flattener setting. In it, check the box that says "Convert Text To Outlines". Save it as whatever you like.

Next, create a new print preset which utilizes your new transparency flattener setting. Also, tick the "Simulate Overprint" box in the output window. Save your new print preset and use it whenever you are generating an ad PostScript or PDF.

The result should be a PDF with all fonts converted to outlines.

Good luck!

This suggestion is a winner, count yourself lucky you are not using an Atex system in your newspaper production

 

[critter]

We decided to try something else, thinking perhaps we had a font caching issue going on. I didn't want to respond to this thread until I knew whether or not cleaning out font caches at the beginning of each shift helped. It did not. We had another instance of this occurring again last week.

I do think that all of these instances could have ads with sub-set and full embedded fonts of the same face on the page. It has always been our policy to fully embed fonts and never use .pdf libraries to create our ad files. Now almost everything I get from outside is subset (and full of RGB, indexed color and every other screwed up thing they can come up with).

So let me ask your collective opinions on this. The fix of the print preset in InDesign for outlines is aimed at the ads, correct? Basically, the editorial content is not the issue. I am considering an automated workflow that would route our .pdf files out through PitStop Server to run the convert to outlines action on all ads. Would that be just as effective? I ask because it eliminates the human factor and is automated.

 

[critter]

And then I read my post and it didn't make much sense.

Our Ad Production department uses MultiAd to build ads. Our in house ads have fully embedded fonts.

So what I was trying to say is that if I captured all incoming ads from outside sources with sub-set fonts and converted them to outlines, shouldn't that achieve the same thing without having to use the preset and convert all fonts to outline on the pages we print to .ps for our pagination workflow?