Blurb font problems

[wolf99]

Hello everyone

I have been using Blurb for book printing for several years--never had a problem, until now: Uploaded a book, got a message from Blurb saying that they could not print the book "due to a problem printing the file".

They then say "This error is occurring due to corrupt fonts that do not correctly embed in your file which is causing issues at our print partners."

The fonts in question are from Adobe fonts, the book is created in inDesign. I have not noticed any problems with the fonts. They look fine to me, they print locally and inDesign preflight does not detect any problems with them. The PDF file that gets sent to Blurb also looks perfect.

I have used the fonts in question before in a book printed by Blurb and they worked fine. My first thought was that this must be a problem at Blurb but I have difficulties convincing them. No surprise there.

Questions:

- Has anyone come across this particular problem before and

- what can I do to resolve it (other than outlining or replacing the fonts)?

Thank you!

Wolf

[BobLevine]

Have you tried simply re-exporting the PDF and re-submitting it?

[wolf99]

I had wondered that and no, it wasn't that 🙂

[Peter Spier]

Does the PDF print correctly for you if you uninstall the fonts temporarily so it is dependent on those that are embedded?

Have you tried reinstaslling the fonts?

[wolf99]

Hm, interesting thought.

It prints correctly for me, anyway. It's just when the file is sent to Blurb that they have problems. (I am not ruling out that it is a problem at their end!) In any case, when they print the file, they would not have the fonts installed but rely on the embedded fonts.

However, I have not tried re-installing the fonts. Worth a try if I can persuade Blurb to check a test file for me.

Thank you for your input.

[Randy Hagan]

I believe I can answer this question for you.

While Adobe Fonts are made available to you within InDesign, those fonts are not exactly downloaded into your system. I mean, technically they sorta are, but they're not available for embedding in any InDesign document. And working your way around the system to do so would violate all kinds of copyright restrictions.

So Blurb isn't lying to you. Those fonts aren't embedded in your InDesign document. As to your PDF, output from InDesign makes provisions to embed Adobe Fonts characters, but InDesign defaults to subset the font to only the characters actually used in the document unless a certain number of characters are used. The default setting for Subset fonts when percent of characters used is less than: edit box is 100%. You may want to change the number from 100% to 1%, as shown below, and see if you get better results.

Hope this helps,

Randy

[wolf99]

Thank you, Randy. Fascinating. I will try that for the next project.

Thanks again for your contribution.

Wolf

[Khovley]

Did this solution work for you? I am now running into a similar issue where my adobe fonts are "missing" when I try to use the blurb book plugin uploader tool. 

[wolf99]

No, it didn't. I ended up creating the book again from scratch, using different fonts. 

The problem is that, even if you change all your fonts, references to the original fonts are left variously in the pdf file.

The fonts I was using apparently belong to a particular group of fonts (can't remember what they are called), which simply won't print on the printers that they use. Seems to be a common problem. One of mine was Neue Haas, which is loosely based on Helvetica. All these fonts cause the same problem, it seems.

Not much of a solution, especially as it is impossible to know in advance.

Wolf

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

[...] 

The problem is that, even if you change all your fonts, references to the original fonts are left variously in the pdf file.

[...] 

By @wolf99

You can clean up those fonts. 

One way is to use Package -> Fonts.

Or you can always convert all texts to curves - using flattening transparency trick. 

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

The unfortunate thing about the online print providers is that they use a collective of different printers to fulfill the orders they get. This is why I don't use them as the quality of your print job will vary because there's no guarantee the same printer gets your job next time.

Unfortunately, their vague message tells you nothing. e.g Which fonts specifically are causing the issue? That info would be useful.

Does your PDF state in its Document Properties > Fonts that all fonts are embedded/subsetted?  If there are any fonts listed that do NOT say that, they weren't embedded, but will still print fine on YOUR printer if your fonts are loaded in your system (or part of your printer's built in fonts).

[wolf99]

I think the issue with the different print providers is exactly the problem. I had this very book printed before, a couple of months ago, and everything was perfect. Then I only made a few small changes to the content and that's when the problems occurred. There is nothing I did that could have caused this. Can't get Blurb to admit that their choice of print providers may be problematic.

Fonts embedded/subsetted in pdf properties: I need to check that.

The fonts are Neue Haas Grotesk Display Pro and Neue Haas Unica W1G. Both sourced from Adobe and used in an Adobe app, inDesign. All licensed.

Thank you for your input.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Also: It would be beneficial for you to do a preflight of your PDF (you only mentioned preflighting in InDesign). Specifically, do a  Preflight > Options > Create Inventory, uncheck everything except for fonts, then review the results. There may be a clue to a problem there.

 

[wolf99]

Preflight is always done. No problems flagged.