Unable to Embed Fonts in PDF Documents

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Unable to Embed Fonts in PDF Documents

When creating PDF documents with barcode fonts or using other barcode font utilities, the resulting barcode field document displays text instead of the intended barcode font.

Solution(s):

This problem can usually be solved by one of the following methods:

  1. Be sure to only install the TTF (TrueType) version of the fonts on Windows. OpenType and PostScript fonts have issues with some PDF generation programs in Windows.
  2. The font may not actually be embedded in the resulting PDF document, therefore, the software must be told to embed the font or to embed the result as a graphic.
  3. In Adobe products, deselect the “Compress Text and Line Art” option, under the “Compression” tab when exporting the document to a PDF format.
  4. Some embedding utilities do not generally support custom fonts. This will involve working with the vendor by supplying a font for testing. An IDAutomation font may be supplied to a vendor with an agreement to delete the font when testing is completed.
  5. If PostScript fonts are being used, refer to the PostScript FSType Error KB Article.
  6. IDAutomation fonts dated July 2003, and later, have been created without symbol encoding and may solve these issues. Applications that have problems with symbol-encoded fonts usually involve embedding or generating documents and files, such as PDF document creation utilities.

The following PDF creation utilities can be used with symbol-encoded fonts without any problems:

  • Adobe Distiller (the latest version supports symbol encoding)
  • BroadGun Software PDF Machine 6.2 (earlier versions have problems with symbol fonts)
  • Crystal Reports 9.1 and greater including the version distributed with Visual Studio can save reports as PDF documents
  • SSRS version 2008 R2 and later embed fonts in PDFs when using TTF fonts only.