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RoboHelp substitutes alien fonts during PDF generation

Contributor ,
May 07, 2021 May 07, 2021

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Hi y'all,

I'm having a problem with RoboHelp 2020.4.173 on Windows10 not creating PDFs using the fonts I specify.

Our company-approved font face is Proxima Nova, which I have installed and which appears correctly in every other application. InDesign, for instance, creates beautiful PDFs using that font. Windows tells me it's "installable" which, I understand, also means embeddable.

In RoboHelp, I've added Proxima Nova to the File > Project Settings > Font List. It's also littered throughout my CSS, starting with
body {
font-family: "Proxima Nova";
font-size: 9.5pt;
}

as well as for elements such as H1, H2, etc.

I made sure to set the PDF preset's Advanced tab > Embed used fonts to ENABLED.

When RoboHelp generates the PDF, it replaces Proxima Nova (a sans serif font) with Adobe Sans MM (sans serif) or Tinos (serif), though there seems to be no rhyme or reason. Sometimes it switches between the two in the middle of a sentence! Neither of these fonts is mentioned or specified in any of my projects or CSS files. In fact, I don't even have them installed (Windows\Fonts directory does not list either of them).

If I DISABLE Embed used fonts, then the PDF contains Tinos but not Adobe Sans MM (interestingly, Courier New shows up properly either way).

If I add an alternate font to the CSS, like so:

body {
font-family: "Proxima Nova", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 9.5pt;
}

the PDF gets created with Arial. So RoboHelp doesn't want to play with Proxima Nova, though InDesign (and other apps) do just fine.

Any ideas how to get past this?

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , May 12, 2021 May 12, 2021

There's an extra semi-colon in the import statement. Delete the first one (inside the parentheses).

 

Then try generating again.

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Adobe Employee ,
May 13, 2021 May 13, 2021

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It's probably because the CSS stops already in body at the font-size:

body {
   font-family: proxima-nova;
   font-size: 9.5 pt;
}

"9.5 pt" is not a valid unit: There is a space between "9.5" and "pt".

Remove the space, and try again:

body {
   font-family: proxima-nova;
   font-size: 9.5pt;
}

 You can also see this in your screenshot, where the text size is coming at 12pt while it should be 9.5pt.

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Adobe Employee ,
May 13, 2021 May 13, 2021

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Also, change font-weight: bold; to font-weight: 700;

The Proxima Nova CSS has 400 for regular and 700 for bold.

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Contributor ,
May 13, 2021 May 13, 2021

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THANK YOU, THANK YOU!! The typekit URL and adjustments to the CSS solved my problem!

I appreciate your help so very much! Thank you! I'll mark the post with the @Import url("https://use.typekit.net/rsl6dbo.css"); as the correct answer.

😄

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Adobe Employee ,
May 13, 2021 May 13, 2021

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Awesome. Just one thing which I still find suspicious:

Your Acrobat Screenshot shows "Proxima Nova Rg", while it should – if everything is set up correctly – show"Proxima Nova":

Stefan-Gentz_0-1620918914476.png

That makes me wonder if the font is actually embedded. My hunch is, it is not – and replaced by your locally installed "Proxima Nova Rg" (Rg probably stands for "Regular"). This means it would not come correctly on any other machine that does not have Proxima Nova installed.

Please check in Acrobat (Ctrl+D or File > Properties > Fonts. It should look like this:

Stefan-Gentz_1-1620919263606.png

 

Also, check this CSS example:

@Import url("https://use.typekit.net/rsl6dbo.css");
html, body, p, td, ol, ul, li, dl, dd, input, label, figcaption, div, span, a {
  font-family: proxima-nova;
  font-weight: 400;
  font-style: normal;
  color: black;
}
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, th, dt {
  font-family: proxima-nova;
  font-weight: 700;
  font-style: normal;
  color: black;
}
strong, b {
  font-weight: 700;
}
em, i {
  font-style: italic;
}

It first imports the Adobe TypeKit Proxima Nova and then applies it as proxima-nova (which is the name for the font in the TypeKit CSS) to the most common typical body text elements with font-weight:400; (= regular), and then to all typical heading elements with font-weight:700; (700 = bold).

If you do it like this, you do not need to define font-family and font-weight anywhere else in the CSS anymore and have a central place for it at the beginning of the CSS.

 

 

 

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Contributor ,
May 13, 2021 May 13, 2021

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Thanks for following up, Stefan. The Document Properties > Fonts dialog does show the same listings as in your screenshot (Embedded Subset etc). I emailed myself the PDF to open on my personal computer, where Proxima Nova is not installed. Though I "only" have the CS6 version of Acrobat, it shows the font is embedded, and the text does look like it should, so that's great news!

Thanks also for the CSS tips! Much appreciated.

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