MadCap Software Forums

by **MaggieA4** on Fri Feb 06, 2015 7:19 am

I have to use the font family "Good OT" for marketing reasons in my title pages. Before I took this position in December, they had been generating the docs in Word and then converting them to PDF. I'd like to generate straight to PDF. Unfortunately, I'm now getting this message when I generate the PDF:

"Failed to convert to PDF Font: Good OT. Using default font: Helvetica"

Is there any way to fix this?

Or is this an issue with Adobe?

It's especially frustrating since I only need it for the title page. I've tried adding the styles under the @media print section of my stylesheet, but no luck there. Even when they weren't there, the font still shows up in Flare when I type in the Title and Version number.

Thanks in advance for any help!

by **kwag_myers** on Fri Feb 06, 2015 7:49 am

I came upon this article and thought the Modifying CSS Files section might be of interest (hope it helps): How to Embed Fonts in MadCap Flare WebHelp. I realize this is for WebHelp, but you may be able to apply the same technique.

by **MaggieA4** on Fri Feb 06, 2015 8:52 am

Didn't work. I followed the instructions as best I could and I'm pretty sure I did it right, but no luck. Thanks for the suggestion, though!

by **thad** on Tue Aug 25, 2015 2:44 pm

MaggieA4, I'm wondering whether you were able to resolve this issue? After using Flare successfully for a long time, I'm now encountering this for the first time after updating my PC to Windows 10.

by **betelgeuse** on Tue Jan 05, 2016 7:39 am

I encountered this error today after upgrading to Windows 10. My exact message was:

Failed to convert to PDF font: MS Gothic. Using default font: Helvetica.

I'm not using the MS Gothic or Helvetica fonts anywhere in my project, so it was a little confusing.

I fixed it by downloading and installing MS Gothic.

by **sdriggars** on Fri Feb 12, 2016 2:23 pm

I am getting the same message on my PDF outputs and am also not using MS Gothic or Helvetica. I am also using Windows 10 (which was updated from 8.1), but can't say for sure if the messages coincided with making that update.

by **MunchMan** on Wed Apr 11, 2018 1:19 pm

We paid $500 for two fonts (which look exactly like the free ones I wanted to use, but NOOOOOO), and I am getting this error, which is a show stopper because the substituted font prints as gibberish. Also on Win10. Anyone find resolution? I'm about to just go back to the free fonts and just not tell my boss :evil:

by **thad** on Tue Feb 12, 2019 10:48 am

In my case, I was able to resolve the issue by right-clicking the font and selecting "Install for all users." This instructs Windows to put the font in the Windows/Fonts folder, rather than the appdata folder for a user.

by **joerg_brandt** on Wed Feb 27, 2019 8:04 am

The "install for all users" solved the problem for me. Thanks!

by **pelikano** on Wed Mar 27, 2019 3:01 pm

A big Thank You to the above posters.

In case this helps others, my problem was that our Icomoon font would not embed in PDFs. Yet I could add the icons to MS Word and when Word generated the PDF, the icomoon font listed as Embedded, and the fonts appeared.

Then I noticed the Warning 40040 Failed to convert to PDF font icomoon etc in the Flare build.

I am on Windows 10 and Flare 2017 r3. Running the font's Install for all users option required admin privileges, so I had to call IT. But it worked.

Funny how MS Word was not affected by this problem. I guess Microsoft still plays the same old games.

by **BrianAtInTouchHealth** on Mon Jul 15, 2019 1:59 pm

thad wrote:In my case, I was able to resolve the issue by right-clicking the font and selecting "Install for all users." This instructs Windows to put the font in the Windows/Fonts folder, rather than the appdata folder for a user.

Our intern was having this problem and this fixed it. Thank you, thad!

Brian

by **rekiwi** on Wed Aug 14, 2019 10:19 am

Confirmed. Same issue, same error, different font (Inconsolata). Fixed with right-clicking the font and selecting "Install for all users." Thank you!

by **techwriter31** on Tue May 26, 2020 10:47 am

Same problem for me with the IPAPGothic font that we use to generate Japanese PDFs. Right-clicking the font and selecting "Install for all users" fixed it for me too. THANK YOU!

by **robdocsmith** on Mon Sep 07, 2020 5:12 pm

Another thank you for this. An upgrade to new computer and I thought copying the fonts directly into the Windows/Fonts folder would be enough. Although Flare will display the font, it cannot embed it in a PDF unless it has been 'installed for all users'. Yet one more upgrade snafu to remember!