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James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
July 28, 2006
Question

Text missing from PDF

  • July 28, 2006
  • 102 replies
  • 63808 views
I am a long-time and very experienced user of FrameMaker, Acrobat, and all associated tools. My XP-SP2 system is thoroughly debugged and fully updated.

When I create PDFs in Frame, sections of the text come up missing. The document remains correctly formatted and organized - there are simply missing sentences, paragraphs, etc. in no discernible pattern. I have tried every fix I can think of and all those I have found by searching online - to no avail.

These documents are created from scratch in Frame 7.2p158; I have updated the installation at least once without solving the problem. The PDFs are being created by every known process: print to Distiller (7.0) within Frame; Save As PDF; print to generic PostScript and pass to Distiller. The missing text remains consistent within all processes.

The fonts involved range from junk of unknown origin to (most of my fonts) true Adobe Postscript. Changing fonts does not cure the problem, although it sometimes changes which parts disappear. There is no particularly complex formatting involved (no equations, no unusual character overrides). These documents are mostly contracts and other simple but rigidly formatted documents. None involve imported graphics.

I have tried all variations of saving to MIF and RTF and re-importing. This sometimes changes the faults, but does not cure them.

This problem occurs ONLY with FrameMaker. I can export perfect PDFs, some from very complex source documents, from Word, InDesign, CorelDRAW and a dozen other tools, using any fonts on my system.

(I am dismayed at how hard Adobe support has gotten to use - as the owner of nine of their most expensive apps, I should be able to get better online support without calling in and begging permission!)

If anyone can point me to a known bug, a known fix, or a good starting point for unraveling this problem - or confirm that they've seen a similar error - I would appreciate it!
This topic has been closed for replies.

102 replies

Inspiring
August 22, 2006
But, does this happen with Helvetica, Times, etc? Am wondering if we can get a list of affected fonts.

Hmmmmm ... you might want to change fonts anyway, given the requirement for password-protected PDFs.


You may embed the Font Software into electronic documents for use on computers that are NOT Licensed Computers, subject to the following restrictions: (a) the electronic documents are distributed in a secure format that allows only printing and viewing, and prohibits editing, selecting, enhancing or modifying the text; and (b) the electronic documents are for personal or internal business use. If you are unable to limit access to the document to view and print only, then the electronic document may not be used on computers that are NOT Licensed Computers.

You may embed the Font Software into electronic documents for use on computers that are Licensed Computers provided that the electronic documents are for personal or internal business use.

Without the purchase of an additional license, you may NOT otherwise embed the Font Software. For example and without limitation: (i) You may NOT embed the Font Software into your hardware, software or other products, such as, application programs, electronic games, e-books, kiosks, printers, etc.; (ii) You may NOT embed the Font Software into your web pages; and (iii) You may NOT embed the Font Software into electronic documents that permit editing, selecting, enhancing or other modifying of the text.
Inspiring
August 22, 2006
Bernd,
Thanks so much for posting the FNTCACHE.DAT fix/workaround.
Nothing readily visible on the MS site about it. Interestingly, there isn't too much about it or its inner workings. It seems to be recreated in the same size after the reboot, so it must survey the available fonts. Also, apparently some viri writers hide things in it...

Nitro -- Stone Sans is also one of the fonts on my system that may be related. Or it could just be a coincidence...

Cheers,
art
Known Participant
August 22, 2006
> Thanks so much for posting the FNTCACHE.DAT fix/workaround.
> Also, apparently some viri writers hide things in it...

Yup. To quote some conversations on the net:


"...the next day i found a trojan backdoor virus on windows xp with a file it had created called FNTCache.dat.

The FNTCache.dat is merely camouflage, and has nothing to do with fonts (necessarily). Font caches are common system files, and
using them as a place to store viruses or virus data is just a little bit of social engineering on the virus-writer's part to keep
you from noticing they're there. Update your virus definitions and see what your virus checker tells you."


"I am seeing FNTCACHE.dat file in C:\WINNT\system32. Is this a bad file? Can I remove this file?

FNTCACHE.DAT (FoNT CACHE) comes with a clean install of Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional."


Meaning: FNTCACHE.DAT is a legit system file, but it may contain viruses.
Participating Frequently
August 22, 2006
Sean,

Fonts used don't seem to matter. This bug happens with manuals completely based on the Berhold Imago (PS) as well as with completely different manuals, written using the FF Meta (PS).

It's just deleting the FNTCACHE.DAT from the Windows/system32 folder that *definitely* makes a difference. This file is automatically recreated on Windows start, so I get a new one that works for one day.

Bernd
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
August 22, 2006
Sean - I wasn't taking anything as an insult, just adding to the data points. I'm willing to try anything - I will muck with various Distiller settings, deleting the font cache, etc. in an attempt to help find a universal fix or workaround.

But not this week. I have one more day of killer logistical effort for a conference I have to drive 400 miles for... and I'm done with FM PDFs for the moment. :)
Inspiring
August 22, 2006
Bernd, what fonts, from where did you get them?

Sean
Participating Frequently
August 22, 2006
Sean,

since the process has been working yesterday (the whole day) and didn't work again today, I was in the lucky position to check this option, too. No difference, PDFs come out exactly as NitroPress describes.

NitroPress: What just (right in this very moment) *DID* re-enable the creation of correctly written PDFs, was the same thing I already wrote yesterday.

1. PDFs corrupt
2. Delete FNTCACHE.DAT from Windows/system32 folder and reboot
3. PDFs work :-)

... for today ;-)

Bernd
Inspiring
August 22, 2006
>I'm not sure what this would fix

Hi. It won't fix anything. I was curious about what would happen and it didn't seem like it'd take too much effort.

Given the randomness of it all, though, maybe that won't tell us anything.

>I have a very solid understanding of Frame and text processing and programming and system operation... and I can't figure out a possible root cause for this problem. I don't feel bad, though.

Please believe I am not questioning that. I'm just thinking about a way to troubleshoot this that has not been tried.

Cheers,

Sean
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
August 22, 2006
Sean - I'm not sure what this would fix. In my case, the documents were created using two font families - Stone Serif and Stone Sans. Nothing else. (Oh, Bedrock in a header logo.)

The missing text problem in absolutely no way that I can tell maps to any feature, formatting choice, or other simple thing. Part of a paragraph in Stone Serif will print; part won't. The headings in Stone Sans will print; a disclaimer paragraph in it won't. It isn't even whole paragraphs or headings or sections that fail to print - it's random chunks here and there. It's not even connected to character formats or paragraph overrides.

I have a very solid understanding of Frame and text processing and programming and system operation... and I can't figure out a possible root cause for this problem. I don't feel bad, though. Clearly, Adobe can't either. :P
Inspiring
August 22, 2006
Hi,

In Adobe Distiller font settings, try setting "When embedding fails" to "Cancel job."

Check the Never Embed area and make sure it's empty.

Retry the PDF. Was the PDF created or not?

Regards,

Sean
Participating Frequently
August 22, 2006
Sherman,

yes, of course checking the fonts (documents and system) has been one of the first steps. Like NitroPress, I'm quite familiar with things that *can* happen to a document (I'm working with FM since version 3.1 on Mac and Win), and all documents are as clean as they can be.

The symptoms definitely would be different in case of overridden paragraph formats. At least, it couldn't happen that one day PDF export works flawlessly, the next day it won't, the third day it works for three hours before it stops doing so... all with the same documents.

A great number of problems with XP users? Well, yes, on my Mac I definitely had less problems ;-)

Peter: Yes, a comparison thread could be a good idea. Just let me finish my currently not-so-fluent-but-still-urgent PDF creations (updating *many* manuals)...

Bernd