Distiller of FrameMaker 9 does not embed specific PS fonts

Report · May 14, 2009

Hello,

I have had tough time searching for solution to this problem, and now I'm trying on this forum also.

I have a setup of correctly installed FrameMaker 9 (with bundled Distiller) and Adobe Type Basics 65 fonts on a Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 system. I print an unstructured FrameMaker book to a file using Adobe's Generic PostScript Printer driver. Among advanced printing options of this printer, I have the following set:

- Graphic -> TrueType Font: Substitute with Device Font

- Document Options -> PostScript Options -> TrueType Font Donwload Option: Outline

These settings produced the desired results on some other system using FrameMaker 7.1 and Distiller (installed with Acrobat Professional 7).

The Distiller cannot embed the following fonts into the PDF file, although they are correctly installed (at least as far as I know):

- Helvetica

- Helvetica-Bold

- Helvetica-BoldOblique

- Times-Roman

I double checked to verify that these PS fonts are installed at the appropriate location (C:\PSFONTS) and links to them are created in C:\Windows\Fonts. I used Adobe Type Manager Light for installation.

Other fonts are embedded without problems, but these are all TrueType fonts.

Now, what I suspect is that Distiller cannot embed PS fonts because of missing font location. Since Distiller in FM9 is a crippled version, it neither includes the menu bar where I could access the menu item Settings -> Font Locations..., nor I can check which font locations it considers for distilling. How can I make Distiller aware of the additional font location (if this is the root cause of the problem I have)? Or is this location added automatically by ATM Light and the root cause is somewhere else?

This is the relevant excerpt from the Distiller log file:

%%[ Warning: Helvetica-BoldOblique not found, using Font Substitution. Font cannot be embedded. ]%%
%%[ Warning: Helvetica-Bold not found, using Font Substitution. Font cannot be embedded. ]%%
%%[ Warning: Helvetica not found, using Font Substitution. Font cannot be embedded. ]%%
%%[ Warning: Times-Roman not found, using Font Substitution. Font cannot be embedded. ]%%

Many thanks for any sugguestion or hint.

Boštjan

Report · May 14, 2009

Hi, Boštjan, a couple of things first.

Please let us know the version of FM9 that you're using, as there have been two patches, 9.0.1 and 9.0.2. Be sure to update both in sequence.

Second, and unfortunately despite it's name sounding otherwise, the Adobe generic PS printer is uncategorically the worst printer driver to be using in FM. If you do some google searches for the name "Dov Isaacs" (Dov is "the" Adobe guru on printer drivers) and "generic printer driver" you might find his postings on the subject -- searching here in the forums might possibly find some content, although the new forum software is <ahem> sort of brain dead right now and searches are not very useful.

Removing all traces of the Generic PS driver is critical to getting your system back to stability with FM and PDFs.

The only printer that you should have as your default system printer is the "Adobe PDF" printer. There is a wonderful freebie utility called SetPrint from http://www.sundorne.com that will set the default within FM itself, as opposed to using the system default.

You might consider removing FM and the Distiller setup, removing the generic printer, rebooting, and reinstalling from scratch so that you have Distiller correctly paired with the printer driver, before gettting into the actual font troubleshooting.

Sheila

Report · May 26, 2009

I was experiencing similar problems.

There is a microsoft hotfix that should solve the problem. Works in our production environments.

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2008/07/hotfix_for_framemaker_1.html