Word 2007 MathType Save as PDF trouble

[Carolyn]

I had several Word 2003 documents that have MathType equations in them. When
I've sent them to students they can't read them unless they have MathType
installed on their computer. I was thrilled to find out that Word 2007 had
the save as pdf available so that this problem would be eliminated.

When I am trying to save a word 2007 document with MathType equations
included as a pdf file, the pdf file does not show all of the characters from
the MathType Equations. In particular, none of the parentheses are showing
up.
So if I type y=f(x), for example, the pdf looks like y=f x . This is a huge
problem. Someone please help. Thanks.

 

[Bob Mathews]

Carolyn,

As a former math teacher, I understand your frustration. MathType
equations are created with fonts, even though Word sees them
simply as graphic objects. When saving a Word document for
someone else to open who doesn't have MathType, it's necessary to
embed the MathType fonts into the document. If you're creating a
PDF from Word, it's still necessary to embed the fonts. Adobe
Acrobat gives the option to embed fonts into the document when
using Acrobat to create the PDFs, but when you use Word 2007's
built-in "Save As PDF" feature, you don't have this option.

This leaves two possibilities: either Word embeds all the fonts
automatically or it does not, and you have no option to do so.
Knowing a Word-created PDF is a larger file than an
Acrobat-created PDF, my assumption was the former. I couldn't
verify this in the documentation or via a web search, so I tried
it myself by embedding the fonts in the Word document before
saving as PDF.

I tried a couple of combinations, both of which started with a
Word 2007 document (i.e., a docx file) with MathType equations. I
saved this file as a PDF both before embedding the fonts and
afterward. I have a computer in the office that doesn't have
MathType installed, that I use for situations such as this. I was
able to open both PDFs on this computer, and the equations looked
fine.

Long story short -- I don't doubt the fact that you're having
this problem, but I couldn't duplicate it. What I'd recommend is
trying it with the fonts embedded into the Word document before
you save as PDF.

Unfortunately, doing that isn't a 1-step process. First, include
the MathType fonts in a footer of the document. In the "Header
and Footer" group of the Insert tab, click Footer > Edit Footer.
Next, on the Home tab, select the font "MT Extra", make sure the
cursor is flashing in the footer, and press the spacebar. Go back
to the "Header & Footer Tools > Design" tab, and click "Close
Header and Footer". (If you have used any special fonts in your
equations, you'll also need to include them in the footer, but
normally MT Extra is the only one you'll need.) Now save the
document using Save As > Word Document. In the lower left corner
of the Save As dialog, click Tools > Save Options. In the bottom
section of the Word Options dialog, check the "Embed fonts in the
file" box, but NOT the next one (IOW, leave "Embed only the
characters used..." unchecked). Click OK, then name the document
and save it. Finally, create the PDF.

Let me know if this works for your students. For future problems,
feel free to contact our Technical Support staff directly at
(e-mail address removed). Be sure to include your MathType Product Key
(i.e., registration number) in your e-mail.

--
Bob Mathews
Director of Training
Design Science, Inc.
bobm at dessci.com
http://www.dessci.com/free.asp?free=news
FREE fully-functional 30-day evaluation of MathType 5
MathType, WebEQ, MathPlayer, MathFlow, Equation Editor, TeXaide

 

[Carolyn]

Thank you for the help Bob. Unfortunately it did not help. I am using
MathType version 5.2c. I haven't been able to talk the department head into
upgrading to version 6. Could that be the difference?
When you tested it did you by any chance start with a new document
originally typed in Word 2007?
So far the ones I've found not to show up in the pdf file are "set" of
parentheses, the set of brackets, and the set of braces. However, the set of
vertical bars, absolute value, did show up. I assume there will be others.

 

[Bob Mathews]

Thank you for the help Bob. Unfortunately it did not help.
I am using MathType version 5.2c. I haven't been able to
talk the department head into upgrading to version 6.
Could that be the difference?

MathType 6 will definitely work better in Word 2007 than 5.2c,
but I really don't think that's the cause of the problem here.

When you tested it did you by any chance start with a new
document originally typed in Word 2007?

No, I used a "legacy" document that I had typed in Word 2003.

So far the ones I've found not to show up in the pdf file
are "set" of parentheses, the set of brackets, and the set
of braces. However, the set of vertical bars, absolute value,
did show up. I assume there will be others.

Those characters are created with MT Extra, so that's the
problem, it's just that I don't know how to correct it when
you're using the Word 2007 built-in PDF maker. I do know there
are free PDF makers available on the web. It could be that one of
these allows font embedding, but I don't have any experience with
any of them.

--
Bob Mathews
Director of Training
Design Science, Inc.
bobm at dessci.com
http://www.dessci.com/free.asp?free=news
FREE fully-functional 30-day evaluation of MathType 5
MathType, WebEQ, MathPlayer, MathFlow, Equation Editor, TeXaide

 

[Andrew Richter]

Hi,

I'm having the same problem that Carolyn reported. If I use Ctrl to put in
parentheses in MathType (rather than just typing them both myself), they
don't appear in the Word-generated pdfs (they did when I was using Acrobat
distiller).

I tried the fix you suggested, but it didn't change anything.

Any other thoughts?

Regards,
Andrew Richter

 

[Bob Mathews]

I tried a few things to see if I could duplicate this, and
unfortunately I can't. Like I mentioned in my response to Carolyn,
MathType objects are created with fonts, so it's necessary to have the
fonts available for the rendering software to be able to display them
properly. In the case of Acrobat and Word, it's possible [on the
Windows OS] to embed the fonts into the document so the symbols will
display properly, even on a computer without MathType. I created a
document in Word 2007, saved as a docx, both with and without
embedding the fonts. I also tried saving both of these versions of the
document as a pdf, using Word's built-in feature. I tried viewing
these documents on 2 different computers, neither of which has neither
MathType nor the MathType fonts installed. All 4 of these documents
displayed properly on both computers.

(As an aside, it's possible to embed the fonts by using Acrobat to
create the pdfs, but it doesn't appear to be possible with Word's
built-in pdf feature. This is easily verifiable by the fact that a
document with embedded fonts will be a larger file than without the
fonts, but both pdfs I created with Word's pdf maker were the same
size.)

So, that's not to say that you're hallucinating, just that I couldn't
duplicate the problem. If you'll send me a document that doesn't
display properly, I'll take a look at it. (Send me both the docx and
the pdf.)

--
Bob Mathews
Director of Training
Design Science, Inc.
bobm at dessci.com
http://www.dessci.com/free.asp?free=news
FREE fully-functional 30-day evaluation of MathType 5
MathType, WebEQ, MathPlayer, MathFlow, Equation Editor, TeXaide