A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

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Chris Price
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A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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...
jannuss
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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
Chris Price
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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
Eyal Redler
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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?
Eyal Redler
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macsailor
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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?
Peter Edwardsson
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jannuss
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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
Eyal Redler
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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.
Eyal Redler
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Chris Price
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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.
jannuss
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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
macsailor
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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.
Peter Edwardsson
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jannuss
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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
Chris Price
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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
jannuss
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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
Chris Price
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Re: A Mellel PDF becomes unintelligible

Post 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.
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