Error: Cannot embed font

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Marie Widell
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Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2017 10:46 am

Error: Cannot embed font

Unread post by Marie Widell »

Hi!

I have just updated to H&M 7.3.4 build 4380, and I try to publish a manual to PDF. I get the error message "Cannot embed font: Clear Sans Light, Medium, Bold", which never occurred in our previous version. This is a TrueType font, so I cannot see why it doesn't work. Some of the headings look thicker now than before, but the PDF claims that the font is exactly the same as before. How can I get these fonts embedded (if that's what is needed)?

Best regards,
Marie
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Tim Green
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Re: Error: Cannot embed font

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Marie,

Clear Sans is an Open Type TTF font collection, i.e. a "font" that actually consists of a group of fonts. These can't be embedded, and actually never could. What is going wrong in the new version of Help+Manual is that there is a new Type3 font embedding conversion for font collections that does not appear to be working for this collection. What you can do as a workaround for the time being is turn off the Type3 embedding for collections in Configuration > Publishing Options > PDF > Font Embedding. You won't get Clear Sans in the PDF, but the fallback will most likely look a lot better than what you're getting now.

Our developers are looking into this and I'll let you know more when I have their report. :)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Marie Widell
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2017 10:46 am

Re: Error: Cannot embed font

Unread post by Marie Widell »

Sorry, that made no difference. It seems that the parts of text that are in Medium weight and come from the PDF output template are the ones that are (visibly) affected. They look more like Bold than Medium. Setting them to Normal helps a bit, but it still looks different from our initial versions.

What happens to the fonts that can't be embedded then? Are they changed in the PDF to another font? Will they display correctly on computers with this font installed, but not on computers that don't have it?

It is a bit of a problem that H&M did not warn about this in the old version, then we could have done something about it. Now, it's more or less time for delivery, and this is the client's font, so we can't just choose something else. Would it help to revert to the older version of H&M (if we still have the installation files)?
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Tim Green
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Re: Error: Cannot embed font

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Marie,

It turns out that it is actually a new problem, introduced with the update to the new PDF engine. It is gagging on some fonts but not on others. At the moment I would recommend using another similar font temporarily, if you can. I'm checking whether downgrading would help, and which version you would need. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Tim Green
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Re: Error: Cannot embed font

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Marie,

Update -- you can use this build, which is the current version with the older PDF engine. That should solve your problem:

https://www.helpandmanual.com/download/ ... p-v735.exe
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Marie Widell
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Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2017 10:46 am

Re: Error: Cannot embed font

Unread post by Marie Widell »

That does indeed solve the problem! Thank you very much! Now I just need to get IT to install it properly, which I hope will take less than two weeks this time...
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