Crossed rectangles instead of text

[Dániel5FCE]

Hi!

I am currently trying to modify an existing label, which has chinese and english text as well. 

When I try to open the pdf in illustrator however all the english text is replaced by crossed out rectangles.

If I try to type in the text box full of them, new text seem to display just fine, but the old text does not covert back. 

See the attached picture.

Thanks for the help in advance,

Daniel

[Mike_Gondek]

PDF is not meant top be an editor. Illustrator is much better for editing. Open the PDF in Illustrator. If you have the fonts loaded you will be good, otherwise you may need to outline the fonts.

If you still have trouble please post a copy of the .pdf , we can help you better. 

[Luke Jennings3]

It looks like there may be unembedded fonts in your PDF. With the PDF open in Acrobat, go to File> Properties> Fonts, all fonts should say embedded or embedded subset. Illustrator is not a universal PDF editor and type changes are better made in the original program that created the PDF. You could try running an Acrobat preflight fixup to embed the fonts (Tools> Print Production> Preflight), then try re-opening the PDF in Illustrator. If that doesn't work, your best option might be to re-set the type from scratch and save as a new PDF.

[Dániel5FCE]

Thanks for the help, but it seems to be another issue, all the fonts are embedded or embedded subset. Sadly I do not have access to the original file from which the PDF was created.

[Luke Jennings3]

I would still try to run the preflight, even though the fonts appear to be embedded in Acrobat, you could also try running the preflight Fix Potential Font Problems.

Do you get a missing font message in Illustrator? Try replacing ArialNarrow-Bold font with a similar font on your system.

As a last resort, you can run the preflight Convert Fonts to Outlines, which will give you the same result as Monica's suggestion, although you will not be able to modify the type.

[Dániel5FCE]

Thanks for the help!

There was no missing font message, and it wouldn't let me change the rectangles to a different font when highlighted. 
I have solved the problem by brute force and retyped all the text in Illustrator, this way the fonts worked.

[michelew83603738]

This is an issue of missing fonts. They clearly were not embedded in the pdf and Illustrator will not do that for you. If you can't recover them through Acrobat and don't have them, then you will have to replace them or go to the source to try and get them to embed them into the file.

[Monika Gause]

If the fonts show in Acrobat, you can create a new Illustrator file. Place the PDF in it (linked) and then Object > Flatten transparency. Check Outline fonts. The text will be converted into paths.