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Glossome
New Participant
July 29, 2021
Answered

Cannot find or create the font ...

  • July 29, 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 124972 views

I know this same question/error's been posted a million times and has been around for at least a decade.  There's a number of possible causes and fixes, but none have worked for me.

 

Essentially, I open a PDF (unknown who produced it or how much it's been modified since then), but on some computers I get the error "Cannot find or create the font 'ArialMT'. Some characters may not display or print correctly.", while on others, I get no error dialog at all, but some text is just white boxes while other text (even within the same word or even just a closing bracket (i.e., ']') shows up fine:


 

From digging into the issue, I understand that some version/variation of a font wasn't embedded when the PDF was created, but what I don't understand is why I can open the exact same PDF in various PDF applications and some of them are able to display the entire PDF without any issue.  To wit:

Adobe Acrobat Pro DC (2021.005.20060) - White boxes

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (2021.005.20060) - White boxes

Nitro Pro (13.31.0.605) - No problems whatsoever

Unfortunately, the individual experiencing this issue (in addition to me being able to replicate it) is basically required to use AAP and can't use anything else due to <waves hand around> "reasons".

 

I ran the document in question through PreFlight and of course it finds a host of issues (font name is not unique; font not embedded; font reverts to .notdef glyph; text cannot be mapped to unicode; etc.).

 

Confounding the issue even further, I'm able to open the PDF in question just fine in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (in addition to Nitro PDF) on at least one other computer.  O' Consistency, whyfor dost thou detest me so!

 

Ahem.

 

So my questions are thus:  Am I essentially boned on being able to get Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to open this PDF without issue, or at to display everything correctly and, if not, why does it open (and print) correctly with Nitro PDF (of which I'm not typically a fan, but it seems a mite less ... complexified than AAPDC)?

 

Any advice/guesses/suggestions/etc.?  (Many thanks for any help!)

 

P.S., I'm not able to upload the PDF in question as it's (A), company-sensitive info and (B), 401 pages, but I may be able to hunt down a similarly affected document that would be postable.

Correct answer ken thu huongc86137616

The "workaround" I just discovered with the same problem (and yes, Use Local Fonts was already checked in my case as well) was simply to Recognize Text.  I happened to search for some obvious text in this sheet music pdf, didn't find it, decided to do Recognize Text... and lo and behold, deleting the offending text I had previously added (with Add Text) - "offending" meaning it was the thing triggering the "Cannot find or create" report - and re-adding it... this time worked!  🙂

 

 

4 replies

Yeshwanth28804053mlox
Yeshwanth28804053mlox
New Participant
January 27, 2026
When trying to open a PDF we are receiving this issue. I’ve seen this in 3-4 laptops so far . Any quick fix for that ?

 

B
Brad24970816nuaw
New Participant
June 22, 2022

"Use local fonts" was already checked for me as well with the same issue.

 

A work around I found is to right click the PDF file and select "Open with"> "Google Chrome" which displayed it correctly. Then I printed to a new PDF file which looks normal. Trying to redownload it from the Chrome screen did not work.

    Amal.
    Community Manager
    Amal.Community Manager
    Community Manager
    June 27, 2022

    Hi there

     

    Is this an issue with a particular PDF file or with all the PDFs? Please try with a different PDF file and check.

     

    Also, please share the PDF file in question with us so that we can check it at our end https://helpx.adobe.com/document-cloud/help/sharing-pdfs.html

     

    Regards

    Amal

    K
    ken thu huongc86137616Correct answer
    Inspiring
    May 29, 2024

    The "workaround" I just discovered with the same problem (and yes, Use Local Fonts was already checked in my case as well) was simply to Recognize Text.  I happened to search for some obvious text in this sheet music pdf, didn't find it, decided to do Recognize Text... and lo and behold, deleting the offending text I had previously added (with Add Text) - "offending" meaning it was the thing triggering the "Cannot find or create" report - and re-adding it... this time worked!  🙂

     

     

    J
    John21885708xqg9
    New Participant
    November 22, 2021

    I have a theory on this one:  The font I had this issue with is a font that Adobe licensed in the 1990's, but no longer does.  I believe they may use this function as a licensing control mechanism.

      Amal.
      Community Manager
      Amal.Community Manager
      Community Manager
      July 29, 2021

      Hi Glossome

       

      Hope you are doing well and sorry for the trouble you are experiencing.

       

      As described you are unable to view the PDF properly in your system and getting the square boxes.

       

      As correctly said, it is the font issue as the font is not properly embedded in the PDF file or it is not present on your computer system.  Please try the following preference settings and see if that works for you. Go to Edit (Win), Adobe Acrobat (Mac) > Preferences > Page Display > Under rendering, check use local fonts and click OK  and reboot the system.

       

      Also, you may ask the creator of the PDF file to create the PDF using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and see if that helps

       

      Also the third party apps use their own PDF mechanism to display and render the PDF content and they are not Adobe dependant.

       

      Hope this information will help

       

      Regards

      Amal

        M
        mountaindaddy
        New Participant
        November 10, 2021

        Hi Amal,

        Wondering if you could help me too.

        I have the same issue but "Use Local Fonts" is checked...

        Does this mean that it is a problem with the creation of the file rather than the viewing of it?  If so, where in the PDF printer do I fix this?  Just Print as image?  Anything else?

         

        Thanks!

         

        Jeff

        Amal.
        Community Manager
        Amal.Community Manager
        Community Manager
        November 12, 2021

        Hi Jeff

         

        We are sorry to hear that. Is this a neavior with a particular PDF file or with all the PDFs? Please try with a different PDF and check.

         

        What is the workflow/steps you did to crreate the PDF file? Please try to recreate the PDF file from the orginal source file and see if that helps.

         

        Regards

        Amal

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