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I'm generating PDF files with a document generation tool (Advanced Forms).

I recently turned off the option "embed fonts" to reduce file size and because we use the Calibri font which is installed on most computers.

This is causing some problems in chrome where some text are not displayed properly. See images below to see what i mean. Both images are from the same PDF opened on the same computer but one opened in Chrome and the other in Acrobat Reader.

Does anyone know what the cause of the issue is or how I could fix this without embedding the font?

This is how it looks in chrome:

PDF in Chome

This is how it looks in acrobat reader and the way it should look:

PDF in Acrobat

This is the font information acrobat shows me. From what I found out myself so far is that the Identity-H encoding (Instead of Ansi) might be causing the problem. Al tough I'm not really sure yet how to fix that.

enter image description here

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Does anyone know what the cause of the issue is ...

The PDF might be produced with a custom encoding (nonstandard integer values for characters) Which is a typical opportunity for the wrong characters to be rendered - No idea why Chrome mishandles this though. You can check for custom encodings in the PDF document properties in Adobe Reader.

or how I could fix this without embedding the font?

  • You might try "subset" font embedding so that only the glyphs actually used are embedded. Some PDF production tools will embed the whole of a font, including characters you are not actually using. Embedding a subset can reduce the size of the produced file. It usually results in custom encoding of the glyphs. The aim is to change the way your app writes text into the PDF in the hope you'll hit on an arrangement Chrome's PDF renderer understands.

  • The other way I know to handle this issue is to "flatten" the lettering to filled outlines - many PDF production tools have this option. It will inflate file size though.

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  • Thanks for your answer, my document doesn't seem to have a custom encoding. Also my tool doesn't seem to have the option to flatten, or embed a subset of the font. I will see if I can do that with some scripting. May 1, 2019 at 7:22

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