Embedded font error opening PDF

[marks22690129]

I get the attached embedded font extraction error opening PDF documents. I have Acrobat DC 2019-012-20036. This error just started yesterday, apparently coinciding with this update. All files I've tried so far were generated in MadCap Flare with fonts embedded. Files I could view prior to this update now generate this error. So do newly generated files. My colleagues with Reader can view the files without this error (but I don't know their Reader versions). The font is a company-specific font which had no issues prior to yesterday. I did the usual reboot, reinstall Acrobat and the font. No luck.

[marks22690129]

This only seems to happen with files from Flare, even ones that were fine last week. Instead of the company fonts displayed, there is either MS San Serif characters or blank space.

Files generated from Framemaker don't have the issue,

[ls_rbls]

Hello,

I just noticed you version Acrobat DC 2019-012-20036, There was the an update to that version announced just  yesterday in this forums.

May be it would also be convenient to force an update in your other applications to include the operating system.

And see if through their support web sites they have new release notes with changes changes

[marks22690129]

All software, Adobe or otherwise, is up to date. This worked fine on 8/12 and failed on 8/13 after Adobe updates so no other software is involved but Adobe.

No updates show for Acrobat beyond 2019-012-20036 at this time

[Dov Isaacs]

We are aware of an issue by which PDF files produced by MadCap Flare don't properly embed their fonts and that the most recent update to Acrobat/Reader is not accepting such mal-embedded fonts.

It is possible to fix such PDF files from within Acrobat Pro DC by using the Fix potential font problems profile in Preflight. However, I am alerting the Acrobat development team of the issue and we'll see what we can do to make Acrobat more forgiving of bogus PDF (or at least as forgiving as the last update).

          - Dov

[marks22690129]

I find blaming a competitor's product for the fact that Adobe Acrobat and Reader can no longer properly display a PDF file (that these same Adobe products could before the Adobe update) a poor way to communicate Adobe's effort to fix this issue.

[Test Screen Name]

On the contrary I applaud an honest description of the problem and attempts to fix it. It’s a sad fact that many PDF files are made wrong, and Adobe often work hard to keep wrong files displaying correctly. This sort of language only serves to reduce the amount of useful info we get. Adobe also introduce their own bugs and fix them without “blaming” others.

[marks22690129]

The fact remains Adobe Acrobat can no longer perform the same function that it could last week, despite whatever underlying issues may exist. Any software changes should be backward compatible (within reason). If Adobe needs to tighten PDF standards, do so. But don't render a huge number of existing PDF files unusable in the process

[anonymous - 121]

I'm having a similar issue. I've embedded fonts perfectly through the 2018 Acrobat version and used preflight in the 2017 version. None are working now. I need this to function. I've tried finding and downloading the 2018 Acrobat, but have been unsuccessful. Please advise.

[Tobin23823798vfjt]

Even years later, I am having a similar issue with PDFs created by PDFill.

(the font name is different, but the error is the same)

A couple interesting twists:

Only Reader DC (free) provides the 'font error', Reader Pro does not.

(a small sampling of other readers do not either)

Invoking Preflight: Upon analisys, Preflight indicates 17 font issues.

Upon fix, no isues are found. Therefore I cannot create a usable file w/o the font issue.

[ls_rbls]

Is that a windows 7 computer you are using?

[marks22690129]

it is Windows 10 64 bit. Same Windows update version today as it was at the beginning of the week when this worked.

I noticed in another thread this is now happening to some Reader users as well. Adobe needs a patch quickly.

[marks22690129]

It is a shame that Adobe does not have a process to roll back an update that introduced a problem, at least no way that I can see to go back to the version that existed 8/12 on my PC.

[ls_rbls]

See if by unchecking use system font in Adobe General Preferences would do any difference.

You may also want to dig more if with windows 10 being an 64 bit operating systems the java plugins version installed in your computer also updated to 64bits f4om the 42bit version.

I had an similar  issue in my windows 10  similar to yours; i updated to 64bit version of the java plugins, but nothing of what I was trying to work with was working after that particular update except when I rolled back and installed the 32bit version of the java plugin ; and it resolved my issue.

Maybe this will give you additional insights

[ls_rbls]

Correction,

By Java plugins I meant the Java Runtime Environment installed on Windows

[ls_rbls]

Please excuse my typos.

I wrote this in a hurry while at work so apologies for that

[AnandSri]

Hi Marks,

We're sorry for the trouble you had, a similar issue was reported, and the issue was fixed by reformatting the font file in the application generating the PDF files, try reformatting the font file in MadCap Flare and see if that helps.

Let us know how it goes and share your observation.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

[marks22690129]

I am not sure what "reformatting the font file" in Flare means. I deleted and reinstalled the fonts and this did not change.

The problem with this is that every document I've produced would have to be regenerated and redistributed to my customer base and this is not practical.

Documents that displayed fine last week no longer display properly.

[AnandSri]

Thank you Mark for sharing the details, would it be possible to share a sample PDF file which is throwing the error message with us so that we can test it at our end?

Please share the file in private message only, to send the private message, please take help from the article How Do I Send  Private Message | Adobe Community

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

[marks22690129]

I have sent a link to download a file with this issue via PM. Thanks!

[AnandSri]

Thanks for sharing the details, please allow us some time to investigate and will share an update soon.

Regards,

Anand Sri.

[richards41798378]

I am also experiencing the same font extraction error opening PDF documents that were generated in MadCap Flare in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. It looks like the update to version 2019.012.20036 caused this issue. I hope this issue can be resolved soon.

[wryterlayter]

In case it's relevant, I'm having the same issue, but I've noticed that it's only Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader that produce the error. I can view the PDFs fine using other PDF viewers (ie embedded in Slack or in Chrome).

In other words, we might still be able to produce PDFs, we just can't view them in the latest Acrobat.

[N J A]

The recent Acrobat update to 2019.012.20036 means our team cannot output any usable PDFs from Madcap Flare. Similarly, PDFs built using Flare before the Acrobat update cannot be opened either. This is an extremely serious issue, which must be fixed in hours, not days or weeks!

[Docguy]

It is also not feasible for us to re-produce every PDF we've generated for the last 3+ years and try to distribute them to customers. This is not a solution that will work for us.

I am also not able to find the referenced profile "Fix potential font problems". Even if I could, again, I can't do this for all the PDFs we've been sending customers for years. We need an immediate solution.

As you can see from other posts in these forums, this is not just a MadCap Flare issue. There are several other people who have created PDFs using other tools that are reporting the problem.

For now, I've instructed our customer support team to tell customers to open PDFs in Chrome or Edge, as those will open the PDFs correctly.

When I contacted chat support at Adobe, I was told that Acrobat doesn't support third-party fonts. I was told to purchase Typekit to solve my issues with generating PDFs. Again, not going to re-generate years worth of PDFs and distribute to customers.