Problem fonts and possible remedies

This page is intended for print projects. Ebooks do not retain source fonts unless you are ordering a fixed layout ebook. If you do not understand how to resolve your font issue, just change the font. 

You are probably on this page because you were alerted by prepress that there was an issue with one or more fonts in your PDF files you have submitted for print. We understand this is frustrating because you either just picked a font from a list, or downloaded one from one of many sites, so you may not have any idea what to do about a problem font. We will cover a little bit of the science behind a font and then offer some suggestions that will help resolve most common issues.

Let’s start with a basic outline of how a font file works, and some of the types that exist. At its simplest, a font contains two types of information, on screen display, and printable information. This is how you can change the font, and the appearance changes without you needing to type everything over again. This information is ideally vector, but in many problem cases, is raster. The type of font file (TrueType, OpenType, etc.) is usually not a problem, except for one called “Type 3” which we will go into detail about now.

Type 3

Type 3 fonts are typically (but not exclusively) raster information contained in a font family. Characters like emojis, or graphical elements like hearts, check marks, hand gestures are often a type 3 font. The main issue with these (and why we don’t just proceed with them) is that it is common for them to be missing the printer part of the font information and only contain the screen display part. In the software we use, there is an action that can turn the Type 3 font into a non-text object, but if the font does not contain the necessary printer information, it will simply disappear. For this reason, we do not suggest you try to proceed as is with a Type 3 font, unless you are purchasing a single copy proof and understand that if it does not print, you have accepted the responsibility. We have discovered that many Type 3 issues come from Canva. One issue we have identified is adding Italics in Canva’s text tools. There does not seem to be a clear way to identify which fonts in Canva will have this problem, because we have tested fonts that have given both results. For example, if you apply italic to OpenSans, the resulting PDF contains the TrueType font, but apply it to another common font like Garamond, the resulting PDF contains a Type 3 font. If you are having this problem in Canva, depending on project type, you can export a flattened PDF which will rasterize everything, read more about that in our next section.

Flattening or Rasterizing

While it is true that vector offers many advantages, everything in your book becomes a flattened raster element just before it hits the paper. So you should not fear this process as long as you are doing it at a high enough resolution. You’ve probably always heard that you want your images to be 300 PPI, but printing presses will typically operate at well above double that figure. If you are looking at a page with vector and raster elements, the raster will print with the 300 PPI available in the image, and the vector elements will rasterize at whatever the press setting is. Will you be able to tell the difference between text rasterized at 300 PPI and a press setting of over 600? That largely depends on the size of your text. The smaller it is, the more your eyes are focused on it, and the lack of detail can become apparent. Many problem fonts would be something more decorative you used for a chapter header, so rasterizing at 300 PPI won’t be noticeable. I would not recommend flattening at 300 for something like a novel, but for something like a school yearbook, it’s not typically a problem. If you have the ability to do it at a higher resolution than 300, you may not be able to detect any difference at all.

Outlining

Many font issues can be resolved by converting the font to a vector shape through a process called outlining. This is only available in design software such as Adobe InDesign and would not be available if you are using word processing software such as Microsoft Word. The drawback to outlining, is that your fonts are no longer live text that you can edit, so be sure to save a COPY, and DO NOT save over your original document. To outline fonts in InDesign, select the text box you would like to outline and under the “Type” menu, choose “Create Outlines”. To reiterate, this process is not reversible, and you can no longer edit the text so be sure to ONLY do this to a copy of your file.

Embedding and Subsetting

Most of the time, when you create a PDF, the fonts get embedded automatically. If they don’t, the fonts you see on your screen will not match what we see on our screen and what will ultimately print. A subset means that only the characters in use in your PDF are embedded in the PDF. This is normally not a problem, but if we need to add your ISBN to your copyright page, we might not have access to all the numbers needed if you do not have all the numbers in use in your file. If you received a warning from us that your fonts are not embedded, the most common reason is that you did not check the licensing when downloading a font. Licenses can range from completely free, to “free for personal use” to a demo that you are supposed to purchase after testing in your layout. “Free for personal use” stops once it leaves your computer, even if your book is “for personal use”, we are a business so by sending your book to us, it is no longer only personal use as far as the font is concerned. These fonts would need to be purchased to be used, or you must replace them if you would rather redesign your file.