There are a lot of ways the government evaluators can be really picky when they are reviewing proposals. Too many pages? Throw out the proposal! The volumes are not in the correct size binders? Throw out the proposal! They didn’t include a title page? Throw them out! The DID include a title page that was unnecessary? Throw them out! Well, you get the point.
I always said as a Contracting Office my only job was to ensure all the bidders were always kept on a level playing field. Keep them notified of changes. Make sure you never inadvertently give one of the offerors an advantage.
When I heard about this one, my first thought was they were really, really adhering to the requirements of the proposal and had really good eyesight.
The proposal required all documents to be submitted in an 11pt font. Contractor made it through two submissions with no issues. On the third amendment, they changed one diagram that was 11.5pt to 11pt and converted it to a .pdf file.
The proposal got thrown out by the government because instead of 11pt font the .pdf writer software produced 10.98pt font.
After doing some research, they determined that this is a Microsoft problem. Their Office applications have a conversion issue. Only point sizes that are multiples of 3 (i.e., 6pt, 9pt, 12pt, etc.) come out in either print or .pdf at the exact value specified.
The contractor had never checked their .pdf font sizes before. Why would anyone assume the conversion would be inaccurate?
One of their folks found something in a message thread where the Adobe tech team was asked:
“When I convert a Word 11pt text document to .pdf, text size becomes 10.98. This is for grant submission and text size must be 11pt.”
Answer from an Adobe was:
“This is a problem that has plagued applications under Windows going back well over 20 years! The issue of the resultant text size in .pdf files being a small fraction of a point different from that specified in the application is due to how these Windows applications output either via print or the internal pathway used for creation of .pdf with either Microsoft or Adobe tools. The text you specify in your Office document (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) as 11pt type may appear as 10.98pt or 11.04pt in the resultant .pdf file. The same symptoms occur regardless of whether you produce .pdf using the Adobe PDFMaker “save as Adobe PDF” function (part of Acrobat installed into Office applications), Microsoft’s native “save as .pdf,” or via print drivers including the Adobe PDF PostScript printer driver instance as well as third party print drivers that create .pdf. Unfortunately, there is nothing that Adobe can do about this. If it eases your mind at all, although we have heard about and have experienced this issue ourselves over the years, we have never heard of a grant proposal or a government document submission being rejected on the basis of 11pt text appearing in a .pdf file as 10.98pt, 10.92pt, or 11.04pt. Apparently, those values are “close enough for government work.”
Since this thread was published in 4 years earlier, they checked again and sure enough found a more recent post. The same Adobe tech responded (maybe he’s the font expert?):
“The response I provided previously in this thread and again numerous times in other threads still applies. This is a Microsoft problem and from what we can tell, specifically with their Office applications. Only point sizes that are multiples of 3 points (i.e., 6 pt, 9 pt, 12 pt, 15 pt, etc.) come out in either print or PDF at the exact value specified.
There is absolutely NOTHING that Adobe or anyone else can do about this. You might want to advise those producing the “grant guidelines” of this issue and tell them that unless they allow for the “Microsoft Roundoff Error” they will need to either change the allowable point sizes to be multiples of 3 points or rule out use of Microsoft word processing, presentation, and spreadsheet products.”
The offeror that was thrown out decided to protest to GAO. I can’t find anything else about this so I can’t tell you the end of the story. Or are we really already at the end of the story?
My opinion is that the offeror should not be held accountable for the font issue (since it was outside his control). Assuming that the rest of their proposal met the RFP requirements, and if all the above information had been provided to me, I would have let them include the one diagram in the 10.98pt font.
What do you think? Maybe the Government needs to talk to Bill Gates!
