Does anybody know why type might render strangely when viewing a PDF in Chrome, Firefox and IE?

Question

Does anybody know why type might render strangely when viewing a PDF in Chrome, Firefox and IE?
I have a client who I create a report for every year. This year there seems to be a problem with the PDFs that I have exported when they are viewed in various web browsers. To elaborate, the type is rendering inconsistently – in Chrome the weight of the type is inconsistent (ranging from light to something more heavy) and in IE the type appears more condensed, and the x-height is variable.
To my knowledge Chrome, Firefox and IE are all affected in one way or another. The problem does not occur in Safari.
We always use Helvetica Neue and have never had problems like this before. I am using the same version of Helvetica Neue as I always use, but even when I change the font to Helvetica the problem still persists.
On a deadline so would appreciate some support here. Box of beer to the person who can provide me with a working solution!
Thanks kindly
Simon Winter

Answer 1

Hello Ellis. Thanks for your efforts in helping narrow down this issue, and for offering workarounds for Simon. Here are the steps I sent to Simon, enhanced by the info you provided above:
1. I typed some text in Id CC 2014.0 (Mac OS 10.9.4) using the system font Helvetica Neue Light at 12 pt. All defaults were on, including ligatures.
1.a. I used the text in Simon's example, “An Annual Report marks the end of a year’s work, but it is also an opportunity to reflect on the principles that” and reduced the text frame width so that it wrapped across 4 lines.
1.b. I also tried creating an all-page text frame and filling it with placeholder text (same font, same point size).
2. Export > Interactive PDF (or Static PDF: doesn’t make a difference), using all the default PDF export settings.
3. View resulting PDF in the latest Chrome (36.0.1985.143) on that same Mac, or on Windows, at various zoom levels, on a retina display as well as on a lower-dpi monitor. It looks fine to me: all words and lines have the same even "color" or weight.
In all cases, the fonts embedded in the PDF were listed as:
HelveticaNeue-Light (Embedded Subset)
Type: TrueType
Encoding: Ansi
HelveticaNeue-Light (Embedded Subset)
Type: TrueType (CID)
Encoding: Identity-H
If you follow the above steps, can you repro the problem?