Font question re: PDFs
Hi, I have a general question regarding the best fonts to use in a PDF document.
My company often sends out pdf documents that are probably mostly viewed on screen yet are also printed (especially for conferences). I like using the sans-serif/serif contrast in design. But what fonts to use? What serif fonts best show up in a PDF document on screen? What san-serif fonts are best to use?
19.Apr.2008 6.35pm
>But what fonts to use?
Adobe Minion or Adobe Myriad may be safe bets. Probably any of the more recent Adobe originals would work just as well. :-)
Only partially a joke, Adobe has been known to revise the rendering methods of ATM and Acrobat Reader, but I would guess they wouldn’t do anything to degrade the performance of their show-case fonts.
20.Apr.2008 7.20am
If your PDF has form fields, pay close attention to the font you specify for use in the fields. I’ve been creating some PDFs for intra-office use lately, and I think that the font I’m using for the information in the form fields (Adobe’s Helvetica Neue LT STD) may be preventing the document from printing on some Postscript laser printers (HP 5100, I’m looking at you), becuse they don’t have this font installed. As I haven’t finished troubleshooting this, I can’t be mose specific, but I’m like 98% sure that this is the issue. This doesn’t seem to be an issue on color laser printers with built-in RIPs, though. . . YMMV. Regardless, this may not be an issue for you, asI’ve had no problems at all with text that is not part of form-field elements in the PDFs.
20.Apr.2008 3.45pm
> I think that the font I’m using for the information in the form fields (Adobe’s Helvetica Neue LT STD) may be preventing the document from printing on some Postscript laser printers
Helvetica Neue LT Std allows embedding but not editable-embedding. This means that the fonts can be embedded in the PDF but you won’t be allowed to edit the fields that use such fonts afterwards (e.g. with Acrobat). Try using a font that allows editable-embedding, like Myriad Pro or Minion Pro, in the form fields, or a font that you’re sure everyone will have in their computers, like Arial. You can still use Helvetica Neue LT Std for static text.
21.Apr.2008 4.55am
Miguel, thanks so much for the tip! I’ll try this today when I get into the office.
21.Apr.2008 11.46pm
Although Adobe has continued to improve the rendering in Acrobat/Reader, it wouldn’t even occur to the people doing the rendering engine to try to improve the rendering only with Adobe’s fonts, or disadvantage third party fonts. They’re more concerned with trying to make all fonts work as well as possible - even badly made ones, although there may be limits as to what they can achieve in some cases when the font is itself made improperly.