Need help with PDF

[smokewolf]

I need help troubleshooting a problem.  

One of my customers emailed complaining about text overlapping in one of the files they downloaded [from the email - Unfortunately, the
main file is unusable. The type overlaps and it is virtually unreadable.]. To date this is the only complaint, but my fear is that maybe others are just quite about it. I have no problem with any of these files on any computer I use (about 20 with varying versions of Acrobat [not reader] on them).

At first I thought it was because I used version 6 to create the files but forgot to make it Version 4 compatible. But I had them download the version 4 one and they said it was even worse.

I can not even duplicate this nor am I able to find something on the web about it. Here is a link to one of the files in question:

http://www.93gamesstudio.com/theswing/downloads/RGv4_2.pdf

If anyone has any clue, please let me know.

I hate this, I don't mind if people hate my game but I at least want them to read it first. Now, this customer has been real nice and is not yelling at me. He did allow me several chances to fix it as well. I really appreciate his working with me.

I will be at GenCon for the next few days so my responses may be slow but I want to resolve this, especially if this is a problem in the files themselves.

[Luke]

hi keith,

i'd love to help, but I can't load that page.

can you relink it?

-L

[smokewolf]

Its good now.

Did not notice it when I cut and pasted it.

[smokewolf]

More info: from the user

I'm using Acrobat 4 for Mac. It must have something to do with Windows -> Mac type encoding. Acrobat 6 seems buggy (at least everyone tells me that) and 5 has no major advantage over 4. That's why I'm still on 4 - Adobe must have forgotten to test for backward compatibility.


I only have access to Windows based PC's so can not test this out.

[Luke]

Hi Keith,

I downloaded it and printed a page. Everything's fine on my end.

I run a mac with OS 10.3, so I'm very pdf friendly. I also have Acrobat Pro 6.01.

My advice for you would be to re-rip the pdf. Make sure it's down to the lowest compatibility -- 4.0 -- and double check that all fonts are embedded.

Then make sure your customer is using the Acrobat Reader, not a 3rd party app. Ask him to download the lastest software from adobe.

good luck,
-Luke

PS Glitches happen, don't worry too much about it. I ordered a pdf from John Ross and I couldn't print it. Nothing anyone could do.

[Sixteen Coal Black Horses]

I opened the pdf using Acrobat 5 for Mac without any errors. The text looks great -- no overlap.

[Alex Johnson]

Your reader is a hard software/platform combo for me to test, but your document had nary a problem on Acroread 5.0.5 Linux x86.  Which is surprising, considering every other .pdf I've tried to look at has problems due to font, graphics, or version issues.

[Chris Passeno]

Ditto, what Luke said.

[btrc]

Your problem definitely sounds like an embedden font or font substitution problem. You should go into your source pdf and see which fonts are embedded, and then make sure there are no other fonts used which are not embedded. Someone like me who has about a zillion fonts on their system might not notice a problem, but someone running only the basic set for their computer might.

I'll lay odds your body text is -not- using one of the 13 standard fonts that Acrobat always covers. If it does use one of these fonts and the end user is having problems, it might be on -their- end, not yours.

Greg
BTRC