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Giovanni23132686p79k
Participating Frequently
December 18, 2022
Question

Embedding fonts for PDF to publish in kdp?

  • December 18, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 2331 views

I'm trying to publish a softcover book created using framemaker to amazon's KDP but I'm receiving an error about font not being embedded. Specifically, "Fonts are missing from your file. In order to print your book using "Symbol" you will need to embed the missing fonts in your file" and then it points to various equations. I don't think I've had this problem before so I'm not sure where the issue lies- in saving the book as a pdf or in bringing the pdf into KDP (maybe the KDP forums). Is there a setting I'm unaware of where I need to enable embedding a font into the pdf from framemaker? 

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    1 reply

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    December 19, 2022

    Before considering the embedding issue, what Symbol code points are in use and how?

    Historically, FM users were relying on a codepage-mapped Symbol font (Type1 or TrueType), where the text entered would be in the 00h-ffh (\x00-\xff) Latin codespace, but a Character Format of Family "Symbol" would be applied. For example, ASCII "v" (\x77) with legacy Symbol applied is "ω". This is more commonly done in modern times as a native U+03C9 (\u03c9) ω.

     

    It is possible to embed legacy codepage overlay fonts, for PDF, but they are apt to be a problem for HTML & eBook formats.

    G
    Giovanni23132686p79kAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    December 19, 2022

    Unfortunately I have almost zero technical knowledge about framemaker and I'm not sure how to even find out which code points are in use (that's the first time I've heard of "code points" for that matter). If it makes a difference, I'm not trying to use ebook formats at this time; just to be able to print the textbook on demand. 

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    December 19, 2022

    Do a View » Panels » Character Designer
    and see if any of the Character Formats invoke
    Family: Symbol or perhaps Symbol Std.

    If so, the document probably has overlay fonts in use, and in the Unicode age, they need to be replaced by character code points in the Body fonts that natively represent the desired glyphs. You can search on use of the Character Format to find instances. If these were done as local overrides, they could be harder to find.

     

    If you've got legacy overlay fonts being used in the document, it's a 20th century hack that needs to go away for output workflows other than print & PDF. And even for print, some shops may not be able to handle overlay/codepage substitution fonts.

     

    On the other hand, this could also just be a case of a font being used that lacks needed embed permissions, or needs to be subsetted. There are a number of menus to check.

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