Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

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yonabisk
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Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by yonabisk »

Hi,

We use company fonts in our outputs. I have recently moved to a new project and i have a new Flare project and when i build a PDF, i do not get the company fonts. I do get them when i preview a topic and in HTML output, just not in PDFs. I have Windows 10, Adobe Acrobat Pro 11 and Flare 12. When I check the properties in the PDF, it says that the fonts are the company fonts. I tried clearing the font caches, the adobe font cache, reinstalling Acrobat, reinstalling the fonts. Nothing helped.
Would really appreciate some help!
Thanks!
Feebeegeebee
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by Feebeegeebee »

Hi,
As far as I know, the only way to embed fonts from Flare to PDF is to generate a Word output, and then embed the fonts when generating the PDF from the Word doc.
I'm sure someone else will chip in if there's an alternative...
Regards,
Feebeegeebee
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Using Flare 2022 on Windows 11 (64-bit)
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yonabisk
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by yonabisk »

Thanks for the reply.
Not sure I understand what you mean. I work in a team of 16 people, all of whom have no trouble with the current process. They do not use an intermediate Word Output. They can produce PDFs with embedded custom fonts. However, I have a colleague who has encountered the same problem after upgrading to Windows 10.
yonabisk
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by yonabisk »

I was able to resolve this issue.

After hours of clearing caches, uninstalling, reinstalling and building, it seems that the problem was with the procedure for installing the fonts :!:
Initially, I double-clicked the file and clicked install within the file. Apparently, this somehow affects the installation so that the PDF output from Flare displays the wrong font. I don't know if this is a Windows 10 issue or a Flare issue. It might be worth mentioning somewhere in the Flare documentation that it is better to install fonts by right-clicking the font file and then clicking Install.
Please keep in mind that the problem was only with PDF output produced via Flare. There was no problem with the fonts in HTML output and when PDFing a Word file (outside Flare).
Cheers :)
doc_guy
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by doc_guy »

Thank you for posting your solution. It will most likely help somebody out with a similar problem in the future.

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victoriasmith
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by victoriasmith »

I'd like to update on this topic, as several of us have had the same problem at the office...

Recap: Custom fonts work perfectly on HTML, but don't show in PDFs on one machine, but do on the other...

I've just had this issue, and tried the fix of re-installing the fonts (including with PC restart) and it did not work.

I have found a fix, and it turns out Flare must be picky about the way the CSS is written when it creates the PDFs.

So:

Code: Select all

font-family: Open Sans;
will not work in PDFs.

But

Code: Select all

font-family: 'Open Sans';
does work in PDFs.

This goes against Madcap's suggestion that you select the font from the drop-down list, and use the font name listed automatically, as when I do that, I get

Code: Select all

Open Sans
without the single quotation marks.

I knew that the problem was not the way the fonts were installed, because our documents have two custom fonts, Raleway and Open Sans, and Raleway displayed perfectly in the PDFs. I believe this is because it is one word, so there is no confusion.

In summary:
If your fonts are several words long, use single quote marks!

Hope it helps anyone who comes across this issue in future! :lol:
smajors
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by smajors »

I've tried using the single quotes and this still doesn't resolve the problem for me. Any other tricks? I don't know how to reinstall the font but I can find it on my local machine when I do a Windows search for fonts it appears in the search results.I don't think the font was removed from my computer. I'm not sure what's going on.
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Joanc
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by Joanc »

I am having trouble with Arial, of all fonts. Some of my topics are coming into the PDF build with fonts and spacing issues that have been changed and saved, but are still showing up with old fonts and spacing from previous builds. I have checked the stylesheet, the target, the TOC - I don't know what else to try. I am very new to Flare, any help would be appreciated.
AlexFox
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by AlexFox »

Did you get any further with this problem @Joanc?
ChoccieMuffin
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

Joanc wrote:I am having trouble with Arial, of all fonts. Some of my topics are coming into the PDF build with fonts and spacing issues that have been changed and saved, but are still showing up with old fonts and spacing from previous builds. I have checked the stylesheet, the target, the TOC - I don't know what else to try. I am very new to Flare, any help would be appreciated.
Something that sometimes causes this is if your screen resolution is anything other than 100%. If you've changed it so you can see things more clearly, the PDF output can get messed up. Check that, and come back if that doesn't fix the problem.
Started as a newbie with Flare 6.1, now using Flare 2023.
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Request features at https://www.madcapsoftware.com/feedback ... quest.aspx
MunchMan
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by MunchMan »

The above solution of right-click and select Install instead of double-click to install was on the path to fixing this for me.

1. Remove custom fonts, including all sub-flavors (bold, italic, etc.)
2. Restart.
3. Right click font and select "install for all users". Plain "install" didn't fix the problem for my new Win10 office laptop.
4. For each of my 20 fonts I had to enter an installer user name and password; that's a security level set by my IT department.

Fonts in PDF now generate correctly.
wgaffga
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by wgaffga »

MunchMan wrote:The above solution of right-click and select Install instead of double-click to install was on the path to fixing this for me.

1. Remove custom fonts, including all sub-flavors (bold, italic, etc.)
2. Restart.
3. Right click font and select "install for all users". Plain "install" didn't fix the problem for my new Win10 office laptop.
4. For each of my 20 fonts I had to enter an installer user name and password; that's a security level set by my IT department.

Fonts in PDF now generate correctly.
This method worked for me, after much trial and tribulation. Including tech support.
rkotraba
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by rkotraba »

The method of right-clicking and then reinstalling for all users worked for me as well. Thanks for the solution!
3lliot
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by 3lliot »

If anyone is still struggling with this - I found none of the above solutions to work, but this suggestion in Stack Overflow did work:

"The @font-face rule can have “font-family” defined as any name. However, I recommend using the default name seen in Flare. You can find out what name Flare is reading the font by going to the Home Ribbon and selecting the Font dropdown. The reason I recommend this is because if the font name is different than what appears in the dropdown, the PDF outputs will have to point to a different font name than your HTML5 outputs.

The name you show in the example looks like the name on the filesystem, not necessarily what the name appears as in the ribbon."

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/590 ... pdf-output
NorthEast
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by NorthEast »

3lliot wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 9:09 pm If anyone is still struggling with this - I found none of the above solutions to work, but this suggestion in Stack Overflow did work:

"The @font-face rule can have “font-family” defined as any name. However, I recommend using the default name seen in Flare. You can find out what name Flare is reading the font by going to the Home Ribbon and selecting the Font dropdown. The reason I recommend this is because if the font name is different than what appears in the dropdown, the PDF outputs will have to point to a different font name than your HTML5 outputs.

The name you show in the example looks like the name on the filesystem, not necessarily what the name appears as in the ribbon."

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/590 ... pdf-output
The information in this thread is still valid for PDFs though - you will need to install the font in Windows for 'all users', otherwise the font will not be embedded in the PDF.

That StackOverflow message is kind-of correct, but it's also not really talking about the same thing. The @font-face definition in CSS is only used for HTML5 outputs to specify a web font, so it's not used for PDFs. That message is just recommending that the font-family name you specify in @font-face should match the installed Windows font name that's used for PDFs - which isn't necessary, but might make things easier with your CSS as you don't have to specify different font names for HTML5 and PDF.

But the really important part for PDFs, is that your font-family name must exactly match the font name as it appears when it's installed in Windows - which is the font name you see in Flare's font dropdown (or any other Windows apps with a font list).

One tip here - if you're setting up @font-face for HTML5, make sure you uninstall the font in Windows if you already had it installed. When you test your HTML5 output, you need to make sure the browser is using the web font files (set in @font-face), and is not using the locally installed Windows font. Otherwise you will not notice if there is a problem with @font-face and your web fonts. Once you've confirmed the @font-face is working for HTML5, install the font in Windows and check that your PDF outputs work.
Vibeke B
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by Vibeke B »

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions, I now have the correct IBM Plex Sans font on my front page. However, even though I styled this with a red underline, it does not have a red underline in my PDF output. Any suggestions?
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NorthEast
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Re: Custom fonts do not display in PDF output

Post by NorthEast »

Vibeke B wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2024 4:20 am Thanks for all the tips and suggestions, I now have the correct IBM Plex Sans font on my front page. However, even though I styled this with a red underline, it does not have a red underline in my PDF output. Any suggestions?
That's probably not related to using a custom font.

If you used text-decoration-color, then I don't think that works in PDF outputs. Some CSS properties just don't work in Flare PDFs, but unfortunately MadCap don't publish what CSS properties are supported.
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