Font Size Changing

[jthomas666]

We are implementing a new system in which we generate service bulletins in Crystal Reports, then save them as PDFs. For some reason, Acrobat is consistently reducing the font size of everything in the document, from the report header to the body text, by ~2 points.

Is there a setting in Acrobat that will address this? Manually adjusting the font sizes in Acrobat is NOT a viable option.

 

[Eggles]

How are you making the PDFs? Which version of Acrobat?

 

[jthomas666]

Sorry, that stupid of me to leave that out...

Using Crystal reports export function, exporting via Acrobat Distiller 6.0.

 

[Eggles]

Well, I am not familiar with either Crystal reports or Acrobat 6 (still back on 5). But when you say the process is reducing the font size - are you sure this is the case and not just a screen thing? i.e. when you print the PDFs, the text really is smaller compared to the printout of the original report? Is the page size the same when you select it in Distiller? Do you actually do any selections in Distiller, or does the whole process run in the background without any intervention in Distiller's settings? Do you get a choice to change Distller/Acrobat's settings e.g. under the Properties button in the Print menu? Perhaps you need to separate the two processes involved in creating a PDF. (1) converting the authoring file to postscript, and (2) distilling the postscript to PDF. You do the first by printing 'to file' after selecting Distiller as your printer, and the second is done by opening the postscript file in Distiller itself.

 

[jthomas666]

The report layout in Crystal has specified font sizes for the various report elements. In Crystal, everything looks fine.

Once it has been exported to PDF, the font size has been reduced (verified by checking the text properties). The text is appreicably smaller, resulting in a noticable increase of white space to the right.

The export is done in the backgound, w/ no intervention.

I've just tried printing to PDF instead of exporting. Slightly better results, save that one body element's font size is _increased_ from 11 to 12.

I'm going to keep tweaking various font sttings and see if I can make it work.

 

[jdubbish]

jthomas,

I'm experiencing this same issue using Crystal Reports 9.

When I use the export to PDF function in CR the PDF is created with the fonts being roughly 1-2 points smaller than the actual report itself.

If I Print to PDF via Adobe Distiller then I get better results, but the fonts are instead increased by 1 point this time (same thing you're experiencing).

I've played with a few different ExportOptions values, but none seem to have an effect on the outcome.

Has anyone heard any official word from Crystal/Business Objects on this issue?

 

[jthomas666]

I haven't been able to get anywhere on this issue.

I have noticed that there appears to be some "layering" going in, though--If you see any text that looks like it has been set to bold, if you try to edit it it looks like the same text has been put in place 3-4 times. and you have to delete all the additional layers before making any changes.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the problem has more to do with Crystal Reports than with Acrobat. That's just a hunch, though.

 

[Eggles]

I think anything that isn't made directly by Adobe (and I am assuming this is the case with CR) is going to experience problems going to PDF. There may not be anything you can do to change it, so why not use a larger/smaller font size prior to making the PDF (sort of cancelling out the effect the making of the PDF from CR is having).

 

[jdubbish]

Actually, I ended up just using "Print to Adobe PDF" as a workaround for myself, though it won't work for everyone as you need Adobe Acrobat full release to do so. It still increases it by about 1/2 a point though.

As for changing the font size prior to exporting from Crystal......that would work, but our software uses predefined layouts/styles so this isn't exactly an option, since the predefines print perfect from within Crystal Viewer.

As for this being an Adobe issue, I can't say that it is, as even exporting from the CRViewer to Microsoft Word results in the same downsizing. So it's NOT just PDF, which is strange.

Could it have something to do with CR not using TrueType fonts, and PDF/Word requiring them? Just a guess....probably has no relevance to this issue though.