increase spacing between font characters when using typewrit

[MunkyB]

I have to complete a number of PDF forms and in order to get the text to line up with the boxes (each letter must appear within the confines of a box or the form would be rejected when it is read by OCR) I have to insert a space between each character.

The forms are quite long and complicated and this doubles the amount of typing to complete the forms, if there were some way of not having to type the extra spaces between letters it would make the job of filling in the forms MUCH easier.

Can anyone help? It would be brill if this were a fairly easy fix.

Any help greatly appreciated

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello MunkyB,

I am afraid that there is currently no way to achieve this. The fastest solution I can think of is the one you are already using. Another one would be to try and increase the text size - it will depend on the form and the size of your boxes, but if it allows it - you might manage to fit in a bigger font size - where the spacing will also increase and it might just work.

Best,
Stefan

[MunkyB]

Thanks Stefan

I thought that might be the case. I tried a larger font but it still didn't work. I was even wondering if I could adjust a windows font to make the gap between the characters larger. I know this probably would be more work, but in the long run I would save loads of time. I was thinking (albeit out of ignorance rather than knowledge) that there must be something in a font taht dictates how wide the letters space, so 'why can't I change that'

Nothing's ever that easy is it?

Thanks again for the help

Regards

Lee

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hi Lee,

Modifying a windows font yourself will be quite a task!
And while we do not provide such character spacing tool - I will ask my colleagues if that's at all possible, and if the PDF specification allows it - we will add it as a long term FR in our "To Do" list.

Best,
Stefan
Tracker

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

If you use an OCR font it should not need any modifications. This fixed pitch font is from Bitstream, but there are many others available on the web.

Modifying fonts for your own use is not especially difficult using a font editor like FontCreator, but I really don't think you need to spend time and money for that unless you have other special requirements too.

[MunkyB]

Thanks Bhikkhu,

I've tried the OCR fonts but they are still not spaced out enough. I'll keep looking but thanks for the response, it nearly got me there, but not quite!!

Regards

MunkB

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hi MunkB,

Hope you will manage to find an appropriate font, and sorry that we can't help further with the tools available in our Viewer at this moment.

Best,
Stefan

[MunkyB]

Thanks Guys, after the last post I did some digging and used a free font editor with an OCR font and it's worked a treat. If you can write this into a future build that would be best, but thanks to all your advice, you sent me in the right direction and I have a working solution. Thanks guys, it REALLY will make a big difference.

Can't thank you enough for the help.

Regards

MunkB

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]