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J
JeffH116-Pearl
16-Pearl
March 4, 2019
Solved

Negative Print Kerning in Mathcad 15.0 M050 on Windows 10

  • March 4, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 9744 views

I'm wondering if anyone else is having this problem.  Just noticed that Mathcad 15.0 M050, released specifically for Windows 10, has an odd printing issue.  To PCL printers and PDF files, it appears that the font characters are all using a negative fixed character spacing on the order of -0.01 to -0.06.  This "bunches" up the characters and pushes them all toward the left.  I thought my eyes were going buggy because it is subtle, but when I print and examine a PDF, this negative character spacing is easy to analyze.  Negative kerning is used for type-setting, but not uniformly on every character.  It doesn't seem to matter which printer or which font or font size I use.  I do not see this behavior with M045 on Windows 7.  I don't know yet if it's a Mathcad issue or a Windows 10 issue (although all other apps print just fine).  .NET maybe?

 

I have a ticket open with PTC, but wondered if anyone else is seeing this, or has a clue as to what is happening - or better yet a workaround!

 

Thanks!

    Best answer by JeffH1

    This was resolved with the obsolescence of Legacy Mathcad and the newer .NET capabilities of Mathcad Prime.

    3 replies

    J
    JeffH116-PearlAuthor
    16-Pearl
    March 5, 2019

    Yeah.  So I'm seeing this both at work and at home using M050 on Windows 10.  Printed example attached.

    L
    LucMeekes23-Emerald IV
    23-Emerald IV
    March 5, 2019

    Jeff,

     

    I tried with Mathcad 11 (yes) under Windows 10, and the same text in MsWord.

    Mathcad is on the left, MsWord is on the right.

    This is how it shows in the application:

    LM_20190305_Kerning.png

    And this is what printing to .PDF gives:

    LM_20190305_KerningPDF.png

    This .pdf was generated with 'Microsoft print to pdf', but printing to a .ps file and subsequently distilling the .ps to .pdf produces essentially the same result.

    Note that you can choose your fonts; in Mathcad it's a little more versatile than in Prime. You might consider going for a 'wide' font...

     

    Success!

    Luc

    J
    JeffH116-PearlAuthor
    16-Pearl
    March 6, 2019

    It doesn't matter which font I pick (I've tried several), I get the same bad behavior, which you are apparently not seeing in Mathcad 11.  I think it may be something that crept into the code on 15.0 M050.  If anyone with M050 could check this out, I'd appreciate it.

     

    Which Windows 10 version/update are you using?  PTC was not able to reproduce on some non-updated Windows 10 versions, they are still looking into it.  But this indicates it may also be something to do with a recent OS update (it wouldn't be the first time!).

     

    Thanks

    S
    SOL_INVICTUS10-Marble
    10-Marble
    August 8, 2019

    Within the past month, I received the Mathcad 15 M050 update and then, within the past week, upgraded to Windows 10.  It is now August 2019.  I just discovered this squished text issue, which was not an issue on Windows 7.  An entire line across the page squishes by about 15% and it makes a paragraph difficult to read; the spacing between adjacent text & math regions separates too much.  What a silly issue that I hope PTC is actively working on.  Mathcad 15 is the backbone of our work and I want to see a solution to this quickly.  

      G
      gkammere1-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      March 26, 2020

      No resolutions so far for SPR 8112434??

      J
      JeffH116-PearlAuthor
      16-Pearl
      March 26, 2020

      Not that I've seen.  It would require a new maintenance release of Mathcad 15 to fix.  Given the focus on Prime, limited support of Mathcad 15, and the potential effort to fix this, I really don't see PTC doing this unless something happens with Windows updates that break it completely, requiring a new version in order to keep legacy file conversions to Prime working (unless they build that functionality into Prime). 

      These are the options:

      • Use workaround fonts mentioned in previous posts to minimize this issue
      • Every living, breathing Mathcad 15 user send in a support request (let them know)

      I'm not even going to mention moving to Prime because I don't want this threat to devolve into the 15 vs. Prime debate.

        J
        JeffH116-PearlAuthorAnswer
        16-Pearl
        March 20, 2026

        This was resolved with the obsolescence of Legacy Mathcad and the newer .NET capabilities of Mathcad Prime.

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