Problems with fonts when printing

[Soul Forge]

Hello!

Let me start the issue by describing the context. We are a book printing shop that prints on demand. We recieve hundreds of files each day through multiple channels and different clients.
We've got a couple OCE VARIOPRINT 6250 printers (I think they're called Cannon Varioprint now) for B&W jobs. Even though they are old machines, they do their job pretty well.

But since way back, when we hadn't access to preflighting and prepress software, we've been facing a problem with printing some fonts. We've been able to get some simple flows going usign Switch and Pitstop and, even though we're checking for non-embeded fonts, corrupt fonts and whatnot, we can't seem to solve this problem.

Here's a photo for reference:


Does someone have experience with this kind of problem? Is there a way I could solve it using pitstop and switch?

Thanks in advance!

[loicaigon]

Can you share the file here (only page with issue will be fine)? If not, you may want to share it with our Support for internal analysis.

[Soul Forge]

Sure, here's the link to download the pdf with the page in question:
https://we.tl/t-jP7RBirn7g

I've tried using the PDF X-4 check as well, and didn't get any errors related to fonts.

[loicaigon]

Hi

Your font is a Composite font

That you can detect in a preflight profile (See fonts/composite fonts)

Looking at known issues on Enfocus, I have found the following:
https://enfocus.my.site.com/customers/s ... uage=en_US

Which states:

Typically CID-keyed fonts are checked during a preflight process because they cause problems on older RIPs. They will fail on PostScript Level 1 RIPs, and on some non Adobe "PostScript compatible" RIPs that fail to fully implement the PostScript Level 2 or PostScript 3 specification.

If you detect such fonts, you can decide to:
- Detect error and discard file
- Replace font to non composite (you would probably need the font locally as the document only contain subset of the True Type font)
- Select the composite font and outline

HTH

Loic

[Soul Forge]

Huge thanks for the help, I'll try to convert them to outline and see if it solves our issue!

[Soul Forge]

Follow up on that. I set up some folder in the flow so I can gather all files that has that composite font problem.
I'm creating an action list that changes all fonts I find to a simple version of that font, instead of the composite version.

One problem I'm facing is that the clients use UNICODE CHARACTERS in fonts like Calibri for example.

Is there a way to only outline unicode characters?

I've tried to outline all composite fonts, but I ended up with 1gb files, so it was a nightmare.

[loicaigon]

Is this still the same doc you provided?

[Soul Forge]

We can use this one as an example: https://we.tl/t-ke4yuBBbYG

Here's what I've got:


I made an action to change composite fonts with the font with the same name, but in simple form.

[loicaigon]

Hi,

A possible approach is:
- Select all Calibri composite
- Split into characters
- Change Font > will work on compatible characters, fail on the rest
- Select all Calibri composite > select whatever was not changed previously
- Outline selection
- Select all text using new font
- merge into text line

See Action List here:
https://fromsmash.com/8IaI0WU2oD-dt

HTH

[Soul Forge]

Hello!

First of all, thanks a bunch for the help you're providing. Font problems in printers (specially old ones) is something difficult to learn by myself, as there is little documentation on the internet about that topic. It's nice to have this community to learn with others that has more experience than me, and I'm looking foward for opportunities to share the knowledge I gathered as well.

I started building a flow for fixing that kind of problem, but while I was doing that another problem file arrived.



I'm not getting the composite font error, here's the checks I'm using:



The only warnings the file gets are from embeded substet fonts, True Type Fonts (Which the problem font is) and Type 1 fonts (Which the problem font is not).

Here's a couple pages if it's necessary: https://we.tl/t-Ko1rgDahvw