Fall-back Font  SOLVED

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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Fall-back Font

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

If I view an old PDF font with an embedded font that is not installed on my system, what I see is a spindly outline font.
The attachment Font Not Installed.png is no longer available
Fortunately, I was able to find and install the missing font, which I thought I had lost, by using MainType. The document now looks as it should.
Pictures.zip
(79.91 KiB) Downloaded 63 times
My question is, ”Why is the fall-back font so ugly? Surely, PDF-XChange could use a better Windows system font like Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri, or Segoe instead of using this vector font.

P.S. I attached two images inline, but they are not displayed. Can you see them?
Pictures.zip
(79.91 KiB) Downloaded 63 times
Windows 10 Home 64-bit • AMD Ryzen 5 3400G, 8 Gb
Review: http://www.softerviews.org/PDF-XChange.html
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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Fall-back Font

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

No replies after nearly a week? :(
Windows 10 Home 64-bit • AMD Ryzen 5 3400G, 8 Gb
Review: http://www.softerviews.org/PDF-XChange.html
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Fall-back Font

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello, Bhikkhu Pesala

Sorry for the delay, would it be possible for you to send us a copy of this document as well, so that we can take a look at it and determine why such and unusual font was used as the fallback? In most cases, like you suggested, one of the common fonts, arial, times new roman, calibri, etc, should have been used instead of this. If the document is too large, extracting just that one page from the document should still show the same issue, can you send us that one page?

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Fall-back Font

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Sorry for the delay. I got back to work on the book that I was editing when I first encountered this issue, and since I had found the missing fonts, it was no longer an inconvenience.

I attach the PDF, and the two custom fonts that I created for it many years ago.
LOKADHAMMA.zip
(324.48 KiB) Downloaded 94 times
Windows 10 Home 64-bit • AMD Ryzen 5 3400G, 8 Gb
Review: http://www.softerviews.org/PDF-XChange.html
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Ivan - Tracker Software
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Re: Fall-back Font  SOLVED

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

Hi Bhikkhu,

While our font substitution might be not correct in some cases, in your case it behaves in absolutely the same way as, say, Acrobat and substitutes your font with built-in Sans MM font.
The font substitution process takes into account PDF font parameters and tries to find out a similar font available in the system. If such font cannot be found, build in Sans Serif or Serif MM font is used.
Font parameters that are taken into account are font name, font style, serif or sans serif, etc.
In your case, serif font would be better, but for some reason (question should be addressed to the creator of this PDF) font description of this font in the PDF file does not have a corresponding flag set.

My recommendation would be to embed all used fonts when you generate your PDF file from the source.
Tracker Software (Project Director)

When attaching files to any message - please ensure they are archived and posted as a .ZIP, .RAR or .7z format - or they will not be posted - thanks.
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