INFO-1510: Font Substitution and Embedding

Description

This article lists potential issues with font embedding and font substitution when generating PDFs and printing documents.

There are a number of reasons for font substitution to occur, both when printing and generating a PDF document within PlanetPress. Here are some basic guidelines to help you in troubleshooting these issues.

Fonts in a PDF Resource are substituted to Courrier

When a PDF resource (image, background, data file) is used in a PlanetPress document and this document is used to generate output, a substitution to Courrier will occur if the font itself is not found, either as an embedded font in the PDF, or as a font file in the operating system or printer. It appears in the original PDF because it is “drawn” as such (as a postscript image), however it cannot be embedded in another PDF or printed using Optimized PostScript Stream or Printer-Centric mode.

Solution/Workaround: The ideal solution is to find a way to embed the original PDF resource with the font, most likely by regenerating it from the source using the “Embed Fonts” option. If this option is not available, the only way to print this font correctly is to use the Windows Driver output (not to be confused with Windows Queue), as Windows drivers are capable of printing those fonts.

Finally, you could try to print the original PDF from Acrobat, and capture the output through a PlanetPress WinQueue Input task in Workflow, transforming it into a new PDF. Adobe “fakes” the font when printing, which can be very close to the original font, or very different. Use your judgement on whether this is acceptable.

Font is present but is never present in the PDF or Print output

When attempting to embed a font into a PDF (or printing), some fonts may be substituted for Courier, even if this font is present in the operating system. This may be because the font does not allow embedding (in its licence).

To verify this, you need to have Adobe Acrobat Professional or Standard installed, then follow these instructions:

Go to Control Panel, Printers and Faxes.
Right-click on the Adobe PDF printer, then click Properties.
Click the Printing Options button.
In Adobe PDF Settings, click the Edit button next to Default Settings.
Go in the Fonts folder.
Locate your font in the source. If a padlock icon appears next to the font (instead of O for OpenType or TT for TrueType), then this font cannot be embedded.

Workaround: Please contact the font manufacturer for a properly licensed font, or use a different font.

Data Selections from a PDF is garbled (text is wrong)

This happens in particular cases where the font is embedded in a PDF using a Subset feature, and there is no character table that tells PlanetPress which subset character corresponds to its Unicode equivalent. To verify if this is the case, select part of your text in Adobe PDF Reader, and then paste it in Notepad.exe (not textpad or notepad++). If the text is garbled here, it will not be accessible from PlanetPress. Note that these PDFs should print correctly, only data selections are not available.

Fonts in the PDF embed correctly, but they are very slight differences and the font name has changed.

When using one of the 35 standard printer fonts, PlanetPress cannot use the original font for embedding due to copyright limitations. Instead, a “generic” version of each font is used, which may differ very slightly (sometimes by a few pixels) and is named differently. There is no way to prevent this, if embedding fonts in the PDF.

Here is a list of the 35 standard fonts and their substituted equivalents:

AvantGardeBook	URWGothicL-Book
AvantGardeBook-Oblique	URWGothicL-BookObli
AvantGardeBook-Demi	URWGothicL-Demi
AvantGardeBook-DemiOblique	URWGothicL-DemiObli
Bookman-Demi	URWBookmanL-DemiBold
Bookman-Italic	URWBookmanL-DemiBoldItal
Bookman-Light	URWBookmanL-Ligh
Bookman-LightItalic	URWBookmanL-LighItal
Courrier	Courier
Courrier_Bold	NimbusMonL-Bold
Courrier_Oblique	NimbusMonL-Obli
Courrier_BoldOblique	NimbusMonL-BoldObli
Helvetica	NimbusSanL-Regu
Helvetica_Bold	NimbusSanL-Bold
Helvetica_Oblique	NimbusSanL-ReguItal
Helvetica_BoldOblique	NimbusSanL-BoldItal
Helvetica_Narrow	NimbusSanL-ReguCond
Helvetica_NarrowBold	NimbusSanL-BoldCond
Helvetica_NarrowBoldOblique	NimbusSanL-BoldCondItal
Helvetica_NarrowOblique	NimbusSanL-ReguCondItal
NewCenturySchibk-Roman	CenturySchL-Roma
NewCenturySchibk-Bold	CenturySchL-Bold
NewCenturySchibk-Italic	CenturySchL-Ital
NewCenturySchibk-BoldItalic	CenturySchL-BoldItal
Palatino-Roman	URWPalladioL-Roman
Palatino-Bold	URWPalladioL-Bold
Palatino-Italic	URWPalladioL-Ital
Palatino-BoldItalic	URWPalladioL-BoldItal
Symbol	Symbol
Times-Roman	NimbusRomNo9L-Regu
Times-Bold	NimbusRomNo9L-Medi
Times-Italic	NimbusRomNo9L-ReguItal
Times-BoldItalic	NimbusRomNo9L-MediItal
ZapfChancery-MediumItalic	URWChanaryL
ZapfDingbats	Dingbats

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