How to modify font contrast

Question

I compiled my LaTeX document in a new computer running Win7 and it seems that the font contrast while checking the resulting pdf document is severely decreased without having changed anything in my code. Previously, I was compiling it in Win Vista environment. Any idea? The controversial thing is that in a "Windowed viewer mode" the font seems OK, but while opening independently as an "external viewer" the pdf document, the text font seems like transparent.

First

Second

This may be an effect of antialiasing applied by one previewer but not the other one. — egreg, Jan 16 '14 at 11:02
Please zoom in very strongly. I guess that one is a bitmap font (pixel font) and the other is a vector font. Try adding the lmodern package. — Dr. Manuel Kuehner, Jan 16 '14 at 12:17
check the font types (acrobat font menu or the pdffonts command line utility) If you are picking up Type3 fonts then one system is mis-configured to use the original bitmap fonts rather than scalable font versions. — David Carlisle, Jan 16 '14 at 12:34

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

It looks like the document uses bitmap fonts (see Wikipedia 1 and Wikipedia 2) and therefore the rendering looks like the contrast is less good. Zoom in very closely and you will probably see the little steps/stairs/pixel.

Try using the lmodern package (CTAN). I saw this problem several times. Sometimes it was necessary to update the LaTeX installation. Are you using MiKTeX?

If it does not look like the following screenshot (smooth even when zooming in) then it's not a vector font:

enter image description here

See also this related question. The answer from Stefan Kottwitz explains the solution in detail.

How to modify font contrast

1 Answers1