OFFXP: Office Document PDF Files Contain Malformed Characters

When you create a portable document format (PDF) file from an Excel 2002 worksheet or a Publisher 2002 publication, some of the characters appear malformed in the .pdf document.

The characters may appear in the wrong font, or the characters may overlap one another.

This behavior can occur in the following situation:

• You create a document containing wrapped text.
• You format the font with a style that is not present on the computer. For example, you italicize a font that does not have an Italic style.
• You print the document to a PostScript (.ps) file.
• You use Adobe Distiller to create a .pdf document from the file.
• You view the .pdf file in Adobe Acrobat.

When you italicize, apply a bold face, or otherwise customize the appearance of a font, and it has no corresponding font in the font folder that represents that customization, Office XP "synthesizes" an altered version of the font based on the normal version of the font. The problem occurs when Adobe Distiller substitutes one of these "synthetic" fonts for a TrueType font in the PostScript output file.

To work around this issue, select a font that has a corresponding style in the font folder. Use this font in your publication to create the PostScript file for your Adobe Acrobat .pdf file.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.