I have to submit my 230 page book, (which i crazily designed in Corel ) to the publisher this week for editing and copyediting. They do not work with Corel and they need to be able to copy the text into MS Word for editing. I formed my pdf embedding the fonts (the pdf looks perfect) and did a test to see if i could copy and paste from the pdf to a word processing program. All worked fine except for the words I used in small caps. These came out as nonsense symbols. I tried changing under Document in my pdf setttings to Asci 85 but same result. All works well except for words that are in small caps. ( i have small caps in all my chapter openings);.I noticed in Corel X5 there is an option when publishing to pdfs under the Objects tab in the pdf settings for UNICODE ( as opposed to Asci). I did a small test with this in x5 and it worked fine - Small caps that were copied and pasted from the pdf appeared perfect. My problem is getting this result in X7 as I don't see this option in x7s pdf settings. Am I missing something? it is hard for me to imagine an upgraded version would allow for less options.I could in theory save all my x7 files as version 15 and work from x5 but that might cause unnoticed screw-ups and besides it is difficult to work in Windows 10 with x5.Any advice ( need quite urgent) how to get these results in x7?Thanks in advance
First of all, Corel did not provide proper support of OpenType until version X6. Versions X5 and prior only had basic support, treating OTFs no better than a 1990's TrueType or Postscript Type 1 font file with a basic 256 character maximum. OpenType fonts can contain a staggering amount of characters in a single font file. It stinks how Corel dragged its feet for more than a decade after OpenType first appeared before doing the superior font format any justice. Anyway, back-saving CDR files to version X5 or earlier will break a lot of enhanced OTF features in a CorelDRAW document.
Next trouble shooting step: are the people viewing your PDF using the exact same fonts as you're using? That includes the same build. For example, the versions of Arial and Times New Roman bundled in the Windows operating system have changed with every major build of Windows. A copy of Arial from WindowsXP is very primitive compared to the version in Windows10.
Not all OpenType fonts contain true Small Capitals character sets. If someone on the receiving end substitutes fonts for something else he might switch to a typeface lacking true small caps.
It's great when a typeface designer will include a native small capitals character set within an OTF typeface family. Various applications, including MS Word and CorelDRAW, have functions to fake a small capitals look if the font doesn't have those native characters. The visual results absolutely stink. The only acceptable way at all to fake a small caps treatment with a typeface lacking true small caps characters is by doing so manually with a OTF Variable Font. The weight slider can be used to adjust the smaller letters so their weight more closely matches the bigger letters. That approach is only good for small amounts of lettering (like a logo or word mark), it would be very tedious doing that with a long document.
Which PDF preset are you using to create the PDFs? Prepress? PDF/X? Which version compatibility level Normally if you save a PDF from CorelDRAW in the latest PDF version available in the version of CorelDRAW you're using it should work fine (and properly support those OTF features). With some of the characters dropping, I would try un-checking the "subset fonts" option so the entire font file gets embedded. CorelDRAW's PDF output defaults to converting TrueType fonts to Type 1. I don't know if un-checking that option would help.
Bobby, thank you for taking the time to answer. I'll respond to what you wrote.The font i am using is a Pro full set of Galliard Pro, so the small caps are true small caps. In the pdfs I tried both with and without subsets. I did the test myself ( so obviously i have the same font set/build). It hasn't reached the publisher yet because i need to see if they will be able to copy and paste. Since I was not able to see the Small Caps, my assumption is they will not either.The irony is that the test with x5 did work which completely fools me. As I wrote, in the x5 PDF settings under Objects (in x5) there is an encoding text option for Unicode. This option does not appear in X7. It did not matter which pdf setting i used in x7. I tried PDF X-3, I tried Editing, I tried document settings, i tried Prepress. All produced the strange nonsense symbols instead of the small caps. I do not have MS Word so did my test in Libre Office, and also just pasted into my email, and they both gave me nonsense symbols for the small caps. I am assuming it will not act differently in Word. Frustrated.
CorelDRAW X5 is not a fully OpenType enabled application. If you are applying a small caps effect to text within X5 it's very likely it's just faking it by scaling down capital letters to 75% of their normal size. Galliard Pro does have a native small capitals character set though. That can be accessed in X7, either in the Text docker or highlighting segments of text and choosing the drop-down menu options underneath.
Either way the publisher would need to be doing its own typesetting in the same build of Galliard Pro to duplicate what you've been doing with any accuracy. Normally authors of books and other long documents just type out their manuscripts without any "window dressing" and leave it up to the publisher to make typographical choices.