Export to PDF replaces "ff" and "ss" in the entire document with a blank square box

[RandyM]

I am evaluating the 3 Affinity products to replace Adobe. When exporting a document to PDF, every word in the document with "ff" and "ss" are all replaced with a square box. See attachments to view the problem.

I have tried every PDF type. The only one that doesn't do this is when I rasterize the file but then it's pages that look like photos and is 30mb in size. This defeats the purpose of PDF.

Please advise.

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

How are you viewing the exported PDF files? If you are opening them with an Affinity application, you may need to ensure that you turn off the "Subset Fonts" option in the More... part of the Export dialog. That should enable Affinity to properly interpret the ligatures that it is currently missing.

Alternatively, you could use Affinity's typography settings in the Character panel to disable the ligatures.

[Sean P]

Hi RandyM,

In addition to what Walt has said would you be able to attach a copy of the afdesign file that you're exporting please? What font is it that you're using on the text?

 

[RandyM]

Thank you Walt and Sean. I have a 20+ page PDF with a Georgia font. If I change the font to anything else it messes up the entire formatting of the document. I need to edit the file, and that seems to work just fine. When I save it as PDF the problem occurs as shown throughout the document.

I am able to view the original PDF with Adobe PDF (any version), but the saved edited file from Affinity Designer has the problem described in my original post.

When I save the PDF file "Text as Curves" it works fine but cannot later edit the new file.

I tried turning off "Subset fonts" with no change to the problem. I cannot find a "Character panel" - only a "Text" drop down menu.

I am attaching the afdesign file you asked for Sean.

I am using version 1.8.3

 

FontTest.afdesign

Edited June 12, 2020 by RandyM
Adding version

[RandyM]

Hi Walt,

I found how to turn off ligatures - when doing so it made no difference to the resulting PDF.

Text | Ligatures | None

[markw]

I hope this doesn’t just muddy the waters further for you but I just tried your attached design file and all PDF exports worked as expected, no mystery boxes replacing letters when viewed in Preview or Adobe Reader.

[Sister Irini]

Was there ever a solution to this issue please? We have just spent a considerable sum on printing a magazine that has all the ff, i and single f letters replaced by a small square box. Yes, it ought to have been picked up in the print proof, but wasn't and now very disappointing. It was exported from Affinity Publisher to PDF and has exported this way, before going to print. Any help much appreciated.

[Komatös]

Hello @Sister Irini

Have you tried the suggestions in the previous postings? So switch off ligatures in the character settings or / and subsets in the advanced export settings for PDF export.

[JK-70]

I just experienced the same effect, but while importing a file to Publisher 2 (the same happens with Designer 2). I was importing a pdf that contains the word offset multiple times and in both software it came out o!set. So it was not replaced by a box but with !. And of course it's all words with double f that get the same treatment. I have put a box around the word offers to point it out, later in the text there is also offensive that has the same problem.

I have included attachments. One image is from MacOS preview and the other two from publisher and designer. I have also included the original file. I have the font mukta installed which is the main body font. But the same happened before I installed mukta. It was just replaced with Helvetica.

The Benefits of Expanded Gamut Printing: Savings, Stability, Fast Turnaround - Flexographic Technical Association 1_2.pdf

Edited August 16, 2023 by JK-70

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, @JK-70.

You say you're "importing" the PDF file to Publisher. How are you doing that? A simple Open, or something else?

What application created the PDF file originally? (Sorry; I don't seem to have an app on my iPad that will display that information.)

[JK-70]

Hi Walt,

yeah bad choice of words with import. I right click the file and choose "open file with Publisher 2". It does bring the import window after that but there's little you can do there.

The file was originally created by Safari => print as PDF from a web page.

[JK-70]

Hello again,

just to stir the pot little bit more. Since this is only 8 pages I manually replaced the exclamation mark with double f's and when I then exported the file to PDF it still had the double f's so in that respect my problem seems totally the opposite of the original although definitely a sibling

Importing the exported PDF file back to Publisher did not replace double f's 

[walt.farrell]

6 hours ago, JK-70 said:

Since this is only 8 pages I manually replaced the exclamation mark with double f's

Did you replace with 2 "f" characters, or with a double-f ligature (which the original file contained)?

Did you have Standard Ligatures enabled in the Paragraph settings?

What font were you using, and does it have the ff-ligature?

Basically, as I understand it, if a PDF is created with the ligature characters, it will only be handled properly by the Affinity applications if the PDF was created with the full fonts embedded, not a subset. At least, that is the case if you use Affinity to create the PDF. The PDF you provided uses subset fonts, not the full fonts, so it may show the same problem.

[JK-70]

Hello Walt,

I did replace it with 2x "f". As I said above at first I did not have the correct font (Mukta) and I let the system replace it with Helvetica, but I then installed Mukta to my system and used that. I did try the ligature setting from the Text pulldown menu but it made no difference what setting I used (Default, all, none). Import menu as far as I can see has no settings for that.

 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, JK-70 said:

I did try the ligature setting from the Text pulldown menu but it made no difference what setting I used (Default, all, none).

How it works will depend on exactly when you did it, and what text you had selected. You would have to share a .afpub document for me to see more details.

1 hour ago, JK-70 said:

Import menu as far as I can see has no settings for that.

No, it doesn't. You need to have the Export settings correct, in whichever application created the PDF.