Export to PDF shows no text only Square symbols

[Beevo]

I'm trying to help my brother who has a problem exporting a PDF from OpenOffice Writer 4.1.3. Just today he had problems trying to export an invoice as a PDF. Had no troubles before.

All he gets is square characters no text.

I did some tests. I created a new document with the text 'this is a test' saved it as opendoc and and then tried export as pdf. First of all I should say that the export took SOOOOOO long that i got the 'not responding' after openoffice title on the top of the window. Eventually the file that was written just had square symbols in it and no proper text.

small amount of text in the doc

no text showing in PDF just square symbols

LibreOfficePDFExport.jpg (35.61 KiB) Viewed 6266 times

So, I UNINSTALLED OpenOffice 4.1.1 and installed OpenOffice 4.1.3 - same problem.

Uninstalled OpenOffice again and installed instead LibreOffice (latest version 5.something) - same result. So it seems to me that the problem is EXTERNAL to the writing program.

Here's the thing. My brother was a victim of the Microsoft Windows 10 Nazi invasion which forced an upgrade on his machine without his permission. Ever since then, apart from the annoyance of having to learn how to navigate this new OS, different problems have come up. I'm wondering if this is yet another issue. Though remember; PDF export on AOO has been working fine up to this point and W10 has been installed for some months - but it could be a MS automatic 'update' that put the spanner in the works.

The question is; what external dlls or whatever are used by both AOO and LO that might be damaged or missing to create square symbols where text should be? Anyone any ideas on this. Whatever it is; it has rendered both OpenOffice AND LibreOffice impotent with regard to exporting PDF.

[Zizi64]

no text showing in PDF just square symbols

Is it happened on same PC?

If it is happened on an other PC, then it is maybe a 'missing font' problem.
(The LO can EMBED the applied fonts into the exported pdf file.)

Can you upload your example files (odt and pdf) here?

[Beevo]

Thanks for offering support on this.

Sorry I've not been back to this post. I ran out of time to sort this at the time and since forgot about it. In the end I just got his open doc and I opened it up in OO on my own computer and exported it as PDF and sent that to him. He had to ask me again to do a conversion for him so I came back to see if there were any solutions.

He is still having the same problem but I should say it is only on his computer and when it exports to PDF all you see are these line and box characters whether exported from OpenOffice or LibreOffice - same result. It's a windows 10 computer he's using.

Any more ideas? Thanks

[RoryOF]

Code: Select all

On his computer, if when he does Export to PDF and selects type PDF/A-1a on the Genral tab of the Export dialog, does that improve the situation. Also, can he read the attached PDF files correctly?

[Beevo]

I've tried exporting on his computer in LO with that 1a selected and unticked - same problem. I tried loading in both those PDF files you suggested. BOTH of them do not render correctly on his computer - but then, neither they do not render correctly even on MY computer and there is nothing wrong with my PDF export via OpenOffice or my PDF reader.

[Zizi64]

Any more ideas? Thanks

Please upload your ODF and PDF type sample files here.

[RoryOF]

I've tried exporting on his computer in LO with that 1a selected and unticked - same problem. I tried loading in both those PDF files you suggested. BOTH of them do not render correctly on his computer - but then, neither they do not render correctly even on MY computer and there is nothing wrong with my PDF export via OpenOffice or my PDF reader.

@Beevo: Please try the two files again. I have replaced them in the earlier post with later versions, which I have verified open correctly using two different PDF viewers, both before upload and after downloading.

The earlier files I uploaded had been generated on my computer and had earlier (weeks ago) worked, so I uploaded them without testing. I cannot account for why they suddenly failed.

Edit: I suspect partial file loss due to cpu chip failure some weeks ago.

[John_Ha]

The square boxes indicate a problem with your fonts.

Some older versions of fonts were designated as "not embeddable" which means the user can use the fonts to display something on his pc, but cannot embed the fonts in a file.

When creating a PDF, Writer needs to embed the font. Check File > Properties > Fonts in the PDF - you will see no fonts.

The fix is to install embeddable fonts. Standard fonts included with Windows are embeddable.

Search the Writer forum for several posts about it including this:

See Why Some Fonts Can’t Be Embedded In PDF which suggests that you may have some very old, non-embeddable fonts on your system.

You need to delete these old, unembeddable fonts, and replace them by the standard, Windows fonts.

Rogue Fonts

Q. I followed with interest your series about PDF font embedding. I hadn’t realized that some fonts weren’t being embedded in my files ... Can you explain this?

A. Some fonts are actually prohibited by their creators from embedding in a PDF. You aren’t doing anything incorrect; the font has been deliberately constructed to prevent PDF embedding.

Some Solutions

... Use fonts that will embed! You may wish to contact the foundry (the font creator from whom you purchased the font) about an updated replacement copy of the font that is licensed to permit PDF embedding.

You may not have purchased these problem fonts individually. For example, Corel software such as Draw and WordPerfect used to install vast numbers of non-embeddable fonts on its host computer. Even if WordPerfect was later uninstalled the fonts remain, usable (but not embeddable) by any program. Corel does offer replacement embeddable versions free of charge.

Another example was Apple, whose Macintosh system fonts circa OS8 were also unembeddable.

Old Font, New Font

When Acrobat was new, some founders were concerned that fonts might be extracted from PDFs, so they restricted embedding. The PDF format has become so common that most type foundries have realized that a font that won’t embed has very little value. If a font manufacturer is still deliberately restricting PDF embedding make a mental note to stop doing business with them! The problems their unembeddable type will cause for you in this PDF-connected 21st century are simply not worth the headaches.