problem with printing drill to Adobe .pdf with dot fonts

[George]

Hi everyone... my first post on here.

Okay, I'll try to make this as simple as I can so it doesn't sound too confusing.

I'm using the java version 4.1

I typically use the pyjava dot font (with all the instruments included - the one that uses the "%" for the dots) and I know there's the other one where you use the lower case "S" for the dots.

Last year I had an issue with printing the drill for a client to .pdf format and e-mailing it to them, where when they received it on their end the dots never came out... only a bunch of % on the page.

I tried several times on my end to re-print and e-mail the drill charts but he always called me back telling me that it was still coming out as % rather than the dots.

I then was able to get them to see the dots when I used the other font where you use the lower-case "S" for the dots. But when they printed the drill out on their end, the dots printed about a half-step off to the left of the original location, and differently than what was shows on the screen when they opened the .pdf.

I just now went ahead and test printed everything on a different computer and obviously the % were % and the dots came out with the other font, but as I suspected, the dots printed 1/2 step off to the left. It was all exactly the same as they described to me.

I was wondering if there is some "special" way I need to print these drill charts when I print them to .pdf, whether it be using different software or changing settings in my Adobe PDF printing preferences.

This isn't a problem I need resolved right this moment, but I am hoping to get it figured out before the summer. I don't mind if I have to snail mail drill charts, but seeing as I searched through most of these forums and didn't find anyone else with the exact same problems I have, I figured there's gotta be something I'm missing.

here are a couple pictures to help illustrate what I'm seeing, in case my worded description isn't clear.

this is the original .pdf as viewed on my computer:


and this is a scan of the print out I just did with the lower case "S" for the dots:


#'s 65, 64, 63 and 33 are all supposed to be on that line.


Thanks for any help you can provide. Hopefully I was clear in describing the problems. Any information would be extremely helpful in getting me over this hump I've been in trying to figure it out for myself the past several months.

[trimpe]

Old thread! Rise from your grave!

I'm having the same % sign issue. The problem seems to me that it's not embedding the font into the document. Did anybody ever figure this out? I do everything by PDF, and this only seems to have started happening to me since 5.0.7 (XP SP3)

[George]

actually, my solution ended up being using pdf995 to print the PDF files rather than Adobe. This worked out perfectly.

I know there's another thread on here someplace where Dustin or someone else mentioned it, but I'll just basically repost.

go to the pdf995 download page and download/install the driver and converter. It should show up as a printer choice option when you go to print the charts as "pdf995".

It's free, but you get an ad or two every time you print. It's nothing but a little pop up advertising the pdf995 applications and softwares to purchase.

I used this for a couple years and it all worked out great. I don't have any problems printing to PDF on my Mac, but anytime I use a Windows PC, I use pdf995.

[George]

Printing to a PDF thread.

[trimpe]

Good to know. At least I know that I wasn't doing something wrong. Thanks.

[trimpe]

A free open source alternative. No ads, and works like a charm:

PDFCreator (part of the SourceForge project)
http://www.pdfforge.org/