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A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 9:59 am
by Chris Price
My publisher has found that the PDF I sent them (generated from Mellel) scrambles the text badly in the printing process. Has anyone encountered this problem, and do you know a fix?

And advice gratefully received...

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 7:13 pm
by jannuss
I had something similar when I tried to print a pdf generated by WORD which I received from a large organization.

My printer -- who was able to print it -- explained that the cause was unusual/special-purpose fonts.
I suspect the PC/Mac divide may have contributed to the problem.

Are you using special and/or unusual fonts?

Janet

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 11:21 am
by Chris Price
Hi, Janet,

Thanks for the suggestion.But no, I'm not using any special fonts. You may be right about the PC/Mac thing, though.

Chris

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 8:13 pm
by Eyal Redler
Some things you might want to try and check
1. How did you produce the PDF? Did you use File->Export->PDF or did you use File->Print and then produced a PDF? Try using the opposite method and see if that makes a difference
2. Try producing a PDF from some other application (for example, Text Edit). Does that become unintelligible as well?

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 7:44 am
by macsailor
Eyal Redler wrote: Wed Dec 19, 2018 8:13 pm 1. How did you produce the PDF? Did you use File->Export->PDF or did you use File->Print and then produced a PDF? Try using the opposite method and see if that makes a difference
Which is the recommended and prefered way to create a pdf file from within Mellel using the two methods mentioned above?

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 2:15 pm
by jannuss
-- Export as pdf probably works directly with some standard pdf conversion utility
-- Print as pdf probably also works directly with some standard conversion utility
I've always assumed these two were the same, but Eyal seems to imply that they are not

I turned on Activity monitor while exporting, then printing a large file with lots of images to see if I could catch the name of a utility used . . . nada (in both cases).

Janet

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 5:40 pm
by Eyal Redler
macsailor wrote: Thu Dec 20, 2018 7:44 am Which is the recommended and prefered way to create a pdf file from within Mellel using the two methods mentioned above?
File->Export->PDF is recommended
The main difference is that PDFs produced by print->PDF don't include the outline.

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 1:48 pm
by Chris Price
Thanks, all (esp. Eyal) for the advice. I've sent both 'versions' of PDF to the publishers, whose printers are now telling them their software doesn't recognise the font. It's Palatino Linotype.

Any (polite) suggestions as to what I might suggest the publisher advises the printer to do would be welcome.

Best wishes for 2019, everyone.

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 9:02 pm
by jannuss
So, it was a "strange" font afterall.

I'll ask my printer what he did to work around the problem that I had.

Janet

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 9:18 pm
by macsailor
Chris Price wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 1:48 pm Thanks, all (esp. Eyal) for the advice. I've sent both 'versions' of PDF to the publishers, whose printers are now telling them their software doesn't recognise the font. It's Palatino Linotype.

Any (polite) suggestions as to what I might suggest the publisher advises the printer to do would be welcome.

Best wishes for 2019, everyone.
Maybe you should try to change the font to another, similar one if it doesn't work with Palatino Linotype. I myself, very much prefer Minion Pro instead of Palatino.

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2018 12:48 pm
by jannuss
OK. I spoke with my printer:
He doesn't remember the specific problem I had, but he agrees that these kind of problems are usually font-oriented.
If, he says, an error message appears about a bad font as soon as you go to print, that's it. The file is useless.
However, if no message appears, the solution is to go into the advanced settings and "print as image."

Hope this helps.

Janet

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2018 10:19 am
by Chris Price
Dear all,

Thanks for the various replies. The last thing the publishers told me before the Christmas shutdown was that the printers have identified the problem as being something to do with the imposition process. Apparently this means that we may see some progress in the new year.

If I get anything useful relating to to Mellel out of this, I'll post it; otherwise, thanks for all the input.

Chris

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2018 5:46 pm
by jannuss
Just looked it up: "imposition" is the process of printing multiple pages on both sides of a single large sheet so that when the sheet is folded the pages fall into order with the correct orientation.

This is a very well-defined process: printing four pages on a single large sheet, the front of sheet one contains (going clockwise from the lower right) page 1, page 8, upside-down page 5, upside-down page 4. The back of the first sheet has page 7, page 2, upside-down page 3, upside-down page 6.

How could a troublesome font affect any of this?

Janet

Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 10:55 am
by Chris Price
Most puzzling of all: the problem was solved when they printed the whole thing in colour!

So, almost certainly not a Mellel problem after all, but - actually - no diagnosis as to what it was.

Thanks for contributions.

C.