How to address PDF output FONT issue?

Please post all questions and comments regarding Help & Manual 7 here.

Moderators: Alexander Halser, Tim Green

Post Reply
Mark Foersch
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jan 13, 2017 8:16 pm
Location: CT, USA

How to address PDF output FONT issue?

Unread post by Mark Foersch »

When I output to PDF I get this message-
Cannot embed Font: MSGothic

The Creating PDF Manual dialog progress bar turns red at page 85, however the output appears okay.
How can I find the underlying issue? Is it in the H&M files themselves or something in the PDF output?
Thanks
Clip2.png
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23154
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Re: How to address PDF output FONT issue?

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Mark,

This is just a general problem with the MSGothic font. I just checked it on my Windows 10 installation and it cannot be selected for exclusion from the embed list, which means that it is not embeddable. I will check on this, but my guess is that you cannot use that font in PDF. Even when it is present the character spacing will be all wrong in PDF.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Simon Dismore
Posts: 454
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 1:29 pm
Location: London, UK

Re: How to address PDF output FONT issue?

Unread post by Simon Dismore »

Tim Green wrote:This is just a general problem with the MSGothic font. I just checked it on my Windows 10 installation and it cannot be selected for exclusion from the embed list, which means that it is not embeddable. I will check on this, but my guess is that you cannot use that font in PDF. Even when it is present the character spacing will be all wrong in PDF.
Hi Tim, MS Gothic font is definitely editable embedded. I think this issue is about how keyboard and font settings interact. Windows can filter "fonts we don't think you'll need" from lists, as explained in The New Font Control Panel in Windows 7, and those greyed out fonts are the ones that are missing from the dialog displayed by H&M 7 when you select "Add Font to Exclude List".

If you go into control panel and add Japanese as an input method (you don't need to change your current keyboard), MS Gothic is no longer greyed out in control panel's font folder, and is now visible in H&M's dialog. So adding Japanese input might be a quick solution for Mark Foersch. Longer term you might want to investigate whether the right "CHARSET" flags are being used by the PDF maker etc.
[screenshot] Font exclusion dialog with MS Gothic listed.PNG
Postscript. You don't necessarily need to add another language input. Try this:
  1. Control Panel > Fonts > View installed fonts
  2. Select the font family you want to force visible in dialogs
  3. Click 'Show' in the menu bar
    Font family is no longer greyed-out in control panel folder
    Font family is no longer excluded from the H&M dialog
[screenshot] Force font visibility in dialogs.png
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Mark Foersch
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jan 13, 2017 8:16 pm
Location: CT, USA

Re: How to address PDF output FONT issue?

Unread post by Mark Foersch »

Thank you for the responses.
While I get an error message, it appears like it impacts nothing in the PDF output.
I don't recall select MS Gothic for anything within H&M, that's why I thought the message was odd.
I was able to make MS Gothic appear in the Fonts dialog by doing what Simon said.
I output another PDF and still get the same message.
Oh, well.
User avatar
Alexander Halser
EC-Software Support
Posts: 4098
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 7:24 pm
Location: Salzburg, Austria
Contact:

Re: How to address PDF output FONT issue?

Unread post by Alexander Halser »

MS Gothic is a font collection, not a single TTF. Help+Manual cannot embed excerpts of font collections. If you switch to "Type3" embedding in Help+Manual (Config > PDF > Font Embedding), it will work. "Type3" embedding rebuilds the font glyphs before embedding them and does not try to embed the original font data.
Alexander Halser
Senior Software Architect, EC Software GmbH
User avatar
Alexander Halser
EC-Software Support
Posts: 4098
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 7:24 pm
Location: Salzburg, Austria
Contact:

Re: How to address PDF output FONT issue?

Unread post by Alexander Halser »

We have updated the 7.3 beta today:
http://download.ec-software.com/help-an ... 0-beta.exe

This build has a new PDF font-embedding option to embed fonts from font collections as Type3 fonts. It is a fallback option that kicks in if a TrueType font cannot be embedded because it is part of a collection (which cannot be embedded as TrueType).
hm730-embed-truetype-option.gif
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Alexander Halser
Senior Software Architect, EC Software GmbH
Post Reply