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A
andresr28417701
Participant
May 10, 2018
Answered

Cannot find or create the font'XXXXXXXXXXXXX'. Some characters may not display or print correctly.

  • May 10, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 17887 views

Hi All,

In the last few days for no reason many of our machines are having issues opening PDF's the error is:

Cannot find or create the font'XXXXXXXXXXXXX'. Some characters may not display or print correctly.

XXX = various fonts from Arial, MPDFAA, and many more.

We are running acrobat reader DC, and i have also tried acrobat XI pro, Both display same error.

All that is displayed is dots and in some random characters.

I have tried many things mention online like removing all of adobe ins tall and re-installing, change the compatibility to run as win 7, removing use local fonts, removing enhanced security, checking the font is install, removing the font and adding it again. None have worked.

Only solution i come with that does the trick is to convert the PDF to word and then save as PDF this solves the issues but i would like to know if there is any solution to this problem?

Thank you all in advance.

Regards

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer andresr28417701

Update....

After a number of tests we have come to the conclusion that it is our exchange server.

It changes the embedded fonts to a similar font like - adobe sands MM, if it finds it, if it doesn't it just puts "actual font= Unknown" which will result in dots or random characters. Will talk to our exchange team to try and find a solution

2 replies

W
wgzn
Participating Frequently
January 7, 2021

i had this problem recently with the DIN font. the odd things is that it happened in one document, but NOT in another (nearly exact) version.

after a fairly exhaustive web search, one person mentioned that converting the font from opentype to truetype solved their problem. 
i used cloudconvert dot com yesterday to do that, and indeed, it solved the problem.

J
jp7847723
Participant
May 11, 2018

I'm having exactly the same problem since two weeks, both with Acrobat Reader DC and Abode Acrobat 9 Standard.

By the way, are you using an Exchange email account? The thing is, I have noticed that in my case the problem occurs only when receiving attachments through an Exchange account. The same PDFs received, for example, by Gmail open just fine. But if I forward a PDF from my Exchange account (I don't even have to open it) to Gmail, the error appears every time. So receiving the attachment to my Exchange mailbox seems to be enough to corrupt the file and cause the problem. On the other hand, I have also tried to setup my Gmail in Outlook and everything works fine, so it's not a problem with Outlook...

Also many PDFs do open correctly with Chrome or with other PDF readers but not with Acrobat Reader. And the fonts that Acrobat "cannot create or find" are always regular system fonts, so I don't think that the problem really has to do with missing fonts.

A
andresr28417701Author
Participant
May 11, 2018

Hi JP thank you for your reply, we have not though of it as been an exchange issue but we are going to investigate. Wouldn't be surprised if its a Microsoft update causing the issues.

Will return our findings, if you find a solution before, I would appreciate your input.

Kind regards

A
andresr28417701AuthorCorrect answer
Participant
May 11, 2018

Update....

After a number of tests we have come to the conclusion that it is our exchange server.

It changes the embedded fonts to a similar font like - adobe sands MM, if it finds it, if it doesn't it just puts "actual font= Unknown" which will result in dots or random characters. Will talk to our exchange team to try and find a solution

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