PDF Editor 6.0.321 - Doesn't show math symbols

[tjohnson2]

I am taking physics in college and my professor saves the PowerPoints as PDFs that we can download from the course website. On several of the slides there are formulas that have mathematical symbols like pi and epsilon. For some reason they do not render correctly in PDF-XChange Editor, Adobe Acrobat, Foxit Reader, or Chrome, but they do display correctly in Firefox, Edge, and Sumatra PDF.

I have attached a slide from one of the PowerPoints that demonstrates the issue. When I open it in the latest version of PDF-XChange Editor (6.0.321.0), there are blank spaces on the page where the symbols pi and epsilon_0 should be (in the denominators of the fractions).

Thank you for considering this bug.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello tjohnson2,

Welcome to our forums and thanks for the sample file.
The issue is that the symbol font used in this file is not embedded in it. So you need to either have the exactly same font installed on your machine, or the PDF viewer will need to use a substitute. It seems like neither we nor Adobe can find a good substitute and Edge strangely does. I will pass this to a colleague in the dev team for investigation, but ultimately it would be best if your professor can embed special fonts inside the PDF files when making them to ensure they will display properly at the recipient's end.

Regards,
Stefan

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello again tjohnson2,

I've spoken with a colleague from the dev team and he told me that Symbol Fonts (as the one used for mathematical symbols) should always be embedded in the file - as those are usually quite unique, and finding a substitute for them is nearly impossible. It's some pure chance that Edge and FireFox manage to do it - but this can not be relied on, and indeed the only proper solution for such specialized fonts is for them to be embedded inside the PDF file. Even if PowerPoint is used for the creation of the file - there are sufficient options that should allow the special symbol fonts to be embedded in the produced PDF document.

Regards,
Stefan

[tjohnson2]

Stefan,

Thank you for your response. Sorry for not replying sooner, I had forgotten to turn on email notifications for this thread and completely forgot about it.

I appreciate your looking into the issue, and what you said makes sense that the problem is with the PDF and not the software.

Would you be able to tell me if there is a certain font I can install on my computer that would make the PDF render correctly? I looked at the list of fonts installed on my PC in the Control Panel, and Symbol Regular is one of them.

[Lzcat - Tracker Supp]

Hello tjohnson2.
Installing fonts will not help because created PDF is incorrect, and this is main reason why it does not display correct. Even some of "alternate" PDF viewers display this file correct this is beyond PDF standard and implementing such code in most cases will break compatibility with other PDF files, so there is a little change that we will do this.
As you was told before there is only one correct way to deal with symbolic fonts - embed them.
HTH.