Chinese characters missing pieces in PDF export

[pjtuominen]

Greetings to all!

Odd thing happened this week with the latest version of Illustrator (v 23.0.1). My Illustrator document shows this one particular Chinese font correctly, as it did in Illustrator v 22.1. But when i save it as PDF, parts of some letters are _visually_ missing when viewed in Adobe Reader. I emphasize the "visually" part because if you take the PDF back to Illustrator everything is fine. Also, if you copy the text from the PDF as text to some text editor the character is OK. So the character info is in the PDF, it is just not shown for some reason. I have re-installed the font in question three times from different locations. Also, I have tried to reset the Illustrator Font cache by removing *.lst files. (If you have a definite instruction on how to do this in Win10, then that would perhaps help.)

I have also tried to reset the text components by putting the text to Notepad and bringing it back without any formatting.

The fix for today has been to go back to Illustrator v 22.1, then everything works fine again - the exported PDFs show the characters in full.

So it seems that this is somehow related to the latest version of Illustrator. Any help appreciated, it would be great to be able to use the latest version 23.0.1...

Thanks,

-pete

[Monika Gause]

Can you check it in Acrobat Pro?

And if it doesn't appear in Acrobat, can first check if that it due to some presets in Acrobat.

[pjtuominen]

Yes, problem is in Acrobat Pro too. The error shows in Reader and some browser-based applications as well.

[Monika Gause]

Can you check with the Acrobat forum if this is maybe a known Acrobat issue? Acrobat

[Kenneth Kawamoto]

Sounds annoying - but I'd outline the Chinese characters in AI. If I want to use text as proper text in PDF then I'd use InDesign to create PDF.

[pjtuominen]

The outlining works OK so that is an option as well as a temporary fix. It's just that the customer has received these files files OK for ages so "downgrading" the deliverable might cause questions.

[Raghuveer_Singh]

Hi,

Can you please share the sample file (AI) along with the font used in that (Create a package of the file and attach them as a ZIP) to us at ShareWithAI@adobe.com?

Please also paste this User Forum link so that we can identify you.

With Best Regards,

Raghuveer Singh

Illustrator Team

[pjtuominen]

Thanks rbhunwal​, files sent to the email address.

[Raghuveer_Singh]

Thanks, we are able to repro the issue at our side and forwarded it to the engineering team for further isolation.

With Best Regards,

Raghuveer Singh

Illustrator Team

[gabrielav96605702]

I have the same problem in InDesign, only happens with 2019... if I export from InDesign 2018 Chinese characters are fine.... did you find a solution?

[pjtuominen]

Hi gabrielav96605702​ - I have not received any solution to this. Apparently Adobe tech team is able to see the error also with the material I supplied but no fixes or advice received. It's been awhile so it'd be great to get any news on what's happening, or if nothing will happen. In the meantime, I cannot use the 2019 version of Illustrator which is annoying since I do get a lot of files created with the new version. FYI rbhunwal​

Sad to hear that the same might happen InDesign too.. But good to know that there is a risk in InDesign 2019 as well.

[gabrielav96605702]

I am sure you have already tried this, but if it helps I tried different fonts and only one of them did not corrupt when converting to PDF from InDesign 2019.  The font is a system font and not the client's own font so I still have to use InDesign 2018 to work on his stuff... hopefully Adobe can figure out what is happening.

Good luck!

[pjtuominen]

Yes, I think I noticed that another Chinese font did work OK. But since I need to use a customer-specific font it is not really an option, much like in your case. I really hope there'll be an update soon that fixes this, for all the products in CC...

[pjtuominen]

An update (23.0.2) is available for Illustrator - is this item fixed in that? If not, then I'll need to use the old version (v22.1) still. A little disappointed in the Adobe team here; I sent files as requested and after awhile I got message that they can reproduce the error, but then it's been quiet... rbhunwål​, can you check? Thanks!

[kmusbod]

We are having this issue too v23.0.3 still doing it. Get this fixed ASAP Please!!!

[pjtuominen]

So another big update with the 2020 package. At least for me this is still NOT FIXED; some Chinese chacters are still missing parts when viewing a saved PDF file. The character info is there, PDF just does not show them for some reason in Reader (or browsers). @rbhunwal @Raghuveer_Singh, any hope of this getting fixed before this "bug" gets one year old?

[fortuneRice]

I've experienced this problem for a long time too. My workaround is to just use the Print function and use another PDF generating engine. Microsoft Print to PDF works for me.