Fuzzy Type in PDFs
I notice that quite a few law firms publish PDFs in which the type isn’t rendered properly. Instead, it looks bold and rough unless you zoom in on it, in which case it looks just fine.
Consider the following block of type. The left side is from a PDF published by a Great Big Law Firm; the right side is from the Word document that was the source of the PDF.
The type in the Word document looks fine; the type in the PDF is much heavier and less distinct. To use some highly technical typesetter’s terminology, “it’s got fuzzy type.”
In this case, the problem is that the PDF was saved in the wrong format not produced correctly. But that’s not important here, as there are a number of problems that can prevent PDFs from looking as good as they should.
No, what’s important here is that no one caught the error. They just distributed it to their “friends and clients” with clunky type.
But when your copy’s set in style, that doesn’t happen.
________
And why do so many Great Big Firms do this sort of thing? Because their (partners’) sense of good looks doesn’t (usually) extend to publications.
The partners run the show, and they’re not concerned about fuzzy type or bit-mapped graphics. Those things weren’t even mentioned in law school, so it’s hard to see how they could be important at all. They were taught to concentrate on content, not presentation.
And the marketing department? At most firms, no one in marketing has a background in publishing. And besides, if the attorneys don’t care about the quality of what the firm publishes, why should the folks in marketing (as busy as they are)?
Prospective clients do care. They care about many things: from your (attorneys’) dress to your speech to your gate to the quality (both in terms of content and appearance) of your firm’s publications, especially if your firm is serious about it’s commitment to excellence.
Remember — first appearances count, and anything your firm publishes could affect those impressions.
6 February 2010 at 7:33
Thorne,
I have a request as a follow-up to this post. You have identified the problem with this PDF (i.e., it was saved in the wrong format). What format was it saved in and what format should it have been saved in?
If saving it in the wrong format is not especially important because there are many things that can prevent a PDF from looking good what are some of the most common things that can prevent a PDF from looking good and what are the solutions?
Yours truly,
Bradley B. Clark
12 February 2010 at 8:33
Bradley:
Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
I should NOT have said “saved in the wrong format.” That’s not accurate. I should have said “not produced correctly.”
There are a number of things that can occur during production so that font smoothing (which makes type look real good at smaller sizes) doesn’t work.
The point I was making was that many firms don’t seem to care how they appear in print; i.e., a firm that wouldn’t tolerate an associate showing up for an important business meeting dressed like he was going to do yard work has no problem at all publishing things that don’t look right or work right.
But, to answer your question: I believe the most common error is using the wrong settings in Distiller (or whatever app is used to convert to PDF).
Some other sources of info on this and other PDF-related issues you might find useful:
http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/
http://www.senecadesign.com/designgeek/acrobat.html
http://www.planetpdf.com