I've been trying to create PDF files from my Visio drawings. My current method is very simple, just "Save As" pdf in Visio. One issue I have is that the inter-character spacing becomes uneven after the drawing is converted to pdf. I've attached two images here. The first one shows the original font in Visio and the other shows the distorted font in PDF.
Has anyone experienced this problem before? How would you suggest on fixing this?
Thanks!
I observed the same spacing problem with Visio 2013's export to PDF feature, but not when outputting a PDF using Adobe Acrobat XI Pro. It also appeared when pasting a Microsoft Visio drawing object or pasting and EMF from Visio into Word 2013; however, inserting a WMF from the same Visio drawing does not have the problem. I had just started using 2013 although 2016 versions were already available. I did not have the problem with Visio/Word 2007. -- 7/2016: I left most of my prior observations, but this, the issue appears to have been fixed by Microsoft Update.
Posting the PDF output itself would be very helpful, but from what you have said already, coupled with what you have shown in images, it appears that the Visio output is setting each character individually and getting the character widths wrong, thus the placement of each following letter is too far beyond the preceding one.
I'm not too sure of the baseline positioning, either, because the endpoint of that curving blue line below the "c" in the screenshots you posted is significantly closer to the text in the rendered PDF than in the initial screenshot above it.
See if Visio can deal with Courier first, as that is a monospace font (i.e. each glyph occupies the same width on the line). If it generates text in Courier that still shows wandering letterspacing, I would begin to wonder whether there's a newer/updated Visio release to seek out before continuing to fight with this.
This is apparently a long lasting bug in Visio. I still see it in my Visio 1708, build 8431.2250). The bug is at least 4 years here already.
The working fix to avoid kerning problems for single diagrams is to export them in any bitmap format (e.g. png) or Windows Metafile Format (WMF) or use screen snipping tools to copy diagrams from the screen.
From that, may be the solution can be in tuning the PDF renderer to produce set of raster images instead of using the embedded vector graphics.
Bug report on Microsoft Answers:
One solution is to use the Print function to generate the PDF:
Ctrl+P to open the print dialogpdfcrop (available on the command line if you have LaTeX installed) or Briss (did not test it personally) to remove the white space around your drawing.On my machine, the script below took about 15-20 minutes to execute in a folder with ~350 Visio files.
After using the VBA script shown below to print all Visio files to PDF, you only need to use pdfcrop to remove the whitespace. Note: On Windows you will need to install ActivePerl in addition to MikTeX in order to use pdfcrop. Don't know if this is also necessary with TeXLive.
An example PowerShell command could be:
Get-ChildItem "*-print.pdf" | Foreach-Object {
pdfcrop $_.FullName
}
Or in bash:
for f in *-print.pdf; do
pdfcrop "$f" # or pdfcrop "$f" "${f%-print.pdf}.pdf"
done
After this, you will have a filename-print-crop.pdf for each filename.vsdx.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
'' Copy this code into the "ThisDocument" module in a new vsdx file.
'' Save the vsdx file into the folder where the documents reside that
'' you want to convert to pdf.
'' Then run the macro "PrintAllDocumentsInCurrentFolder".
'' Then use pdfcrop or a similar tool to remove the white space.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Public Sub PrintOpenDocumentToPDF(oDoc As Document, sOutputFileName As String, Optional iPage As Integer = 1)
' First, ensure that the document fits on one page, without rescaling
If oDoc.Pages(iPage).PrintTileCount > 1 Then
oDoc.PaperSize = visPaperSizeA3 ' Try larger paper
DoEvents ' Let Visio calculate the tiling
End If
If oDoc.Pages(iPage).PrintTileCount > 1 Then
' Still doesn't fit... try changing paper orientation
oDoc.PrintLandscape = Not oDoc.PrintLandscape
DoEvents ' Let Visio calculate the tiling
End If
If oDoc.Pages(iPage).PrintTileCount > 1 Then
' If it still doesn't fit, rescale the image to the paper size
oDoc.PrintFitOnPages = True
oDoc.PrintPagesAcross = 1
oDoc.PrintPagesDown = 1
DoEvents ' Let Visio calculate the tiling
End If
oDoc.PrintOut visPrintFromTo, iPage, iPage, , "Microsoft Print to PDF", True, sOutputFileName
End Sub
Public Sub PrintDocumentToPDF(fileName As String, Optional suffix As String = "-print.pdf")
Dim iExtensionIndex As Integer
Dim sOutputFileName As String
Dim oDoc As Document
iExtensionIndex = InStrRev(fileName, ".")
If iExtensionIndex = 0 Then
MsgBox "Error, could not determine the file extension of file '" + fileName + "'", vbExclamation
Exit Sub
End If
sOutputFileName = Left(fileName, iExtensionIndex - 1) + suffix
Set oDoc = Documents.Open(fileName)
If IsNull(oDoc) Then
MsgBox "Error, could open file '" + fileName + "'", vbExclamation
Exit Sub
End If
PrintOpenDocumentToPDF oDoc, sOutputFileName
Dim lAlertResponseOld As Long
lAlertResponseOld = Application.AlertResponse 'Save alert response so we can revert
Application.AlertResponse = 7 'Tell Visio to choose "Don't Save Changes"
oDoc.Close ' Save changes dialog will not be shown
Application.AlertResponse = lAlertResponseOld 'Revert back to original setting
End Sub
Public Sub PrintAllDocumentsInCurrentFolder()
Dim sFolderName, sThisDocumentName As String
Dim isThisFile, isVsdFile As Boolean
Dim oFSO As Object
Dim oFolder As Object
Dim oFile As Object
Dim iExtensionPos
Dim oPrinter As Object
sFolderName = ThisDocument.Path
sThisDocumentFileName = sFolderName + ThisDocument.Name
Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set oFolder = oFSO.GetFolder(sFolderName)
For Each oFile In oFolder.Files
isThisFile = StrComp(oFile.Path, sThisDocumentFileName) = 0
isVsdFile = InStrRev(oFile.Name, ".vsd") > 0
If isVsdFile And Not isThisFile Then
PrintDocumentToPDF oFile.Path
End If
Next oFile
End Sub
The PDF generator is using a similar, but not the same font as Visio. The stroke weights of the examples you posted are not the same (note the horizontal lines in the 'e' and 't').
Try a different font.
