Acroread and html view of .pdf file different. Why?

[Dapper Dan]

A friend of mine who uses Fedora had an associate send him a .pdf file. The print was sent in italics. When he opens the file in Acroread, the fonts are not in italics, yet when it is opened in html view it IS in italics. I opened this same .pdf file in XP and the same thing occurs. In Adobe Reader the print is not in italics, yet in html view it is.

I have very little experience with the creation of .pdf files so could someone please explain to me what is going on here so I can explain it to him?

Thanks!

[bigtomrodney]

What's html view with regard to PDF docs? I hadn't heard of that before.

[Dapper Dan]

What's html view with regard to PDF docs? I hadn't heard of that before.

When the .pdf is sent as an attachment over Gmail and you open the email in the web browser, (both Firefox and IE), you are given the choice (I presume by Gmail) to download it or open it it html view. In html view, he says it looks as it should with italicised letters. When downloaded and opened with Acroread, it does not appear as it should, the letters not being italicised. I did the same thing and can confirm the difference in appearance. What is confusing to me is how the very same .pdf file can appear differently in each. It's the same file.

[bigtomrodney]

Ah right, similar to in a Google search. Well as I understand it there are lots of tools for doing this and similar tricks for PDF but they are generally full of compromises. Try working on a document full of images!

I would think that the PDF file opened in Acroread is the genuine article and the italicised version is a misparsing/glitch from the conversion tool. That is if I've understood you correctly - have you seen the original source that the PDF was generated from?

[Dapper Dan]

I've only seen the .pdf file sent that the sender said the letters were italicised. He says it was sent that way, but under acroread here, the letters don't appear italicised. The letter DO appear italicised in html view offered by Gmail. It's a puzzlement...

[i92guboj]

Weird things can happen if he used a non-standard font. I am not too smart about pdf's but I gues that could be solved by using fonts that are available on all the machines only. Or, alternatively, by including the fonts in the same pdf file. If he uses a given font but you don't have it, then it's up to the viewer and the OS to make a font substitution (otherwise you couldn't see anything at all), and that substitution might -or might not- be fortunate.