Can't show Chinese although fonts are installed

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netsonicyxf
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Can't show Chinese although fonts are installed

Post by netsonicyxf »

PDF-XChange Editor 9.0.354, Win10

The texts in the PDF are Simplified Chinese characters. When opening it for the first time in the Acrobat, it say some Chinese fonts are missing.

After two Chinese fonts are installed, the texts are shown correct in the Acrobat, but are shown as unreadable codes in the PDF-XChange Editor.

example PDF:
1.pdf
(9.17 KiB) Downloaded 42 times
Chinese fonts:
fonts.zip
(4.86 MiB) Downloaded 32 times
PDF shown in Acrobat
Image

PDF shown in PDF-XChange Editor.
Image
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Can't show Chinese although fonts are installed

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello netsonicyxf,

The fonts used in your file are different than the ones you provided:
image.png
So when we can not find an exact match - we try to use a substitute (Arial Narrow in the case of your file) and as you can see - the result is not legible, but if you try with other PDF readers - you will see the same result. It's just that the fonts this file is looking for are not the ones you have provided. They might be "variants" of the same - but it is not an exact match - we will not be able to display those symbols correctly.

You can see how your file is displayed on my end in Adobe's Acrobat Reader here:
image.png
Kind regards,
Stefan
netsonicyxf
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Posts: 67
Joined: Sun Jul 01, 2012 2:19 pm

Re: Can't show Chinese although fonts are installed

Post by netsonicyxf »

Hi Stefan,

Thank you fro the test.

In my system (Win10 with Simplified Chinese language), when opening the PDF for the 1st time, Acroabt shows unreadable codes as well.
But after installing the two Chinese fonts, Acrobat and other PDF reader, such as SumatraPDF, show the readable characters as shown in my 1st post.

Best regards
Sean
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Re: Can't show Chinese although fonts are installed

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Sean,

Thanks! Then maybe besides those fonts there is something else on your machine that is being added (e.g. when you set the corresponding locale). Are you certain that Adobe only installed these two fonts? As sometimes they do add their own proprietary ones as well. Also - if you uninstall these two - does Sumatra start showing unreadable text as well?

Kind regards,
Stefan
netsonicyxf
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Posts: 67
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Re: Can't show Chinese although fonts are installed

Post by netsonicyxf »

Hello Stefan,

After uninstalling the two fonts, part of the texts are shown as unreadable codes in the Acrobat.
But all the texts are readable in the SumatraPDF.

Best regards
Sean
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Re: Can't show Chinese although fonts are installed

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello netsonicyxf,

Then most likely Sumatra is using substitute fonts which we either do not have access to or do not use in our substitution routines! I am afraid that the only sure way to guarantee text will be shown correctly is to embed the fonts inside the PDF file when creating it.

Kind regards,
Stefan
netsonicyxf
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Posts: 67
Joined: Sun Jul 01, 2012 2:19 pm

Re: Can't show Chinese although fonts are installed

Post by netsonicyxf »

Hello Stefan,

Thak you for the suggestion. Unfortunately I'm not the owner of the original PDF, it's difficult for me to embed the fonts.

Therefore I really wish PDF-XChange in the future is able to implement substitution routines that Sumatra uses.

Best regards
Sean
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Re: Can't show Chinese although fonts are installed

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello sean,

I will ask a colleague in the dev team working with fonts to take a look at your file, and see if we can do the same substitutions as Sumatra!

Kind regards,
Stefan
netsonicyxf
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Re: Can't show Chinese although fonts are installed

Post by netsonicyxf »

Hi Stefan,

Thank you. Wish to hear the good news!

Best regards
Sean
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Re: Can't show Chinese although fonts are installed

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello netsonicyxf,

I've had a colleague look at your file - and he told me that your file seems to be using some locale-specific features. Such features were implemented in older Adobe versions for CJK support. As you can see - your file was also originally created by such an older version - Acrobat 6.0).
We have tested your file with the latest Adobe products we have on our end, and even they do not support this "older" feature of their own - whether the fonts are installed or not at our end. Maybe if we had our OS with Chinese language pack - then maybe Adobe would have shown the file OK, but we can't really test this.

In any case - this file does not really conform to the current PDF specification, so all we can do is try to find some workarounds. So we will check what could possibly be done, but please note that at this stage this is not a promise that we would!

Kind regards,
Stefan
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