PDF Fonts Guide: Embedding, Subsetting, and Substitution
Fonts are the most common source of PDF rendering bugs. This guide explains font embedding, subsetting, and what happens when fonts aren't embedded.
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Tags: pdf, developer-tools, internals
PDF Fonts: Embedding, Subsetting, and Why Text Goes Missing Font problems are among the most common PDF failures — text that appears as boxes, question marks, missing characters, or garbled characters when opened on a different machine. Understanding how PDF fonts work explains why these failures happen and how to prevent them. The 14 Standard PDF Fonts PDF defines 14 "standard Type 1 fonts" that every conforming PDF viewer is required to include. Documents using only these fonts don't need to embed font data — the viewer provides them: Serif: Times-Roman, Times-Bold, Times-Italic, Times-BoldItalic Sans-Serif: Helvetica, Helvetica-Bold, Helvetica-Oblique, Helvetica-BoldOblique Monospace: Courier, Courier-Bold, Courier-Oblique, Courier-BoldOblique Symbol/Specialty: Symbol, ZapfDingbats In…
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