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notme564431462
New Participant
October 15, 2025
Answered

Strange boxes appear as spacing in PDF export

  • October 15, 2025
  • 4 replies
  • 341 views

For some reason, when I export PDFs, the spaces between words appear as rectangles with Xs in them. This has never happened before -- I've worked with this document a number of times and it's been fine. Don't know why this is happening now and nothing I do seems to work. I've tried changing the export preferences and replacing the font and it doesn't change. I have to export a clean PDF for approval ASAP. Please help!

Correct answer HARSHIKA_VERMA

Hi notme564431462,

Hope you're doing well!

We would like to follow up on your issue. Are you able to resolve the issue by following the suggestions shared above?

 

Please feel free to update the discussion if you need further assistance from us.

 

We would be happy to help.

 

Thanks,

Harshika

4 replies

J
Jeffrey_Smith
Community Expert
October 21, 2025

You can try this, when exporting, go to Advanced > Fonts > Subset fonts when percent of characters used is less than: 0%.

Note, the default is 100%, 0% will completely encode the entire font set.

    HARSHIKA_VERMA
    Community Manager
    HARSHIKA_VERMACommunity ManagerCorrect answer
    Community Manager
    October 24, 2025

    Hi notme564431462,

    Hope you're doing well!

    We would like to follow up on your issue. Are you able to resolve the issue by following the suggestions shared above?

     

    Please feel free to update the discussion if you need further assistance from us.

     

    We would be happy to help.

     

    Thanks,

    Harshika

      N
      notme564431462Author
      New Participant
      November 4, 2025

      Thanks for checking in! We cleared up the issue. 

      Abhishek Rao
      Community Manager
      Abhishek RaoCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      October 21, 2025

      Hi @notme564431462,

       

      I just wanted to check if the issue got resolved after trying the suggestions shared earlier. If you're still facing the problem, could you please share the name of the specific font that's showing these boxes? If possible, you can also share the font file with us for testing so we can verify the behavior on our end.

       

      Looking forward to your update.

      Abhishek

      Joel Cherney
      Joel Cherney
      Community Expert
      October 15, 2025

      I think that @davecourtemanche is already giving you lots of good troubleshooting advice, but I think that it's worth following up - you day you have already cleared font caches. Which instructions did you follow? Also, have you tried resetting your preferences? 

        davecourtemanche
        davecourtemanche
        Inspiring
        October 15, 2025

        Posting the PDF file might help folks diagnose.

        Abhishek Rao
        Community Manager
        Abhishek RaoCommunity Manager
        Community Manager
        October 15, 2025

        Hi @notme564431462,

         

        Sorry to hear about the issue. Could you please share the version of InDesign and your operating system details? It would also be helpful if you could include screenshots from both the InDesign document and the exported output, so I can better understand what's happening. Additionally, please confirm if this is occurring with just this specific file or with others as well.

         

        Looking forward to your response.

        Abhishek

        N
        notme564431462Author
        New Participant
        October 15, 2025

        Hi, 

         

        It's happening with multiple files now. I'm using the latest version of InDesign and Windows. Not sure what other info you need. I've attached a screenshot of what's happening. 

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