Amazon KDP PDF error from Publisher/Designer; font is the culprit.

[JCSJCS]

Hi folks,

We have some books to publish via Amazon's KDP system, and today I was getting "unknown errors" on my uploads of both the cover and interior PDF.

After reading around, I changed the fonts all to Arial, and they uploaded without issue. I'm using a third-party font.

As I understand it, the PDF export should embed the fonts; I also have this checked under the export options in "more". I've gone into my font manager on my desktop and resolved any duplicate issues with the fonts locally, and re-exported to no avail.

Here are my export settings:

 

If I rasterise everything in the PDF, it uploads ok. However, the colours/opacities/resolution take quite a hit and I'd love to avoid this if possible.

Oddly enough we published several other books with third party fonts without issue. This font is also sadly extremely particular and not easily replaced.

Could anyone offer any ideas on what else I could try? Many thanks!

[thomaso]

Instead choosing "Rasterize Everything" try the option "Text as Curves" in the 'More' options.

[JCSJCS]

45 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Instead choosing "Rasterize Everything" try the option "Text as Curves" in the 'More' options.

Thanks! This allowed it to pass the errors. The file did change in tone slightly, the colours are a tad off. Close enough for this to publish and not as bad as when everything is rasterised, but would you know a way around this/how to compensate? I'm trying to figure out why some custom fonts pass without having to rasterise and some don't.

[thomaso]

There are various technical aspects in font files respectively font file types. May be it's caused by the"third-party" attitude of your font, for instance if it can't get embedded properly. Also, some fonts can avoid to get embedded, like others may avoid getting curved.

[JCSJCS]

thanks thomas. Seems its a bit of a rabbit hole. Luckily it was an extremely stylised font so won't use it again any time soon.

Still though, why does the entire document change in colour/tone when only the text is rasterised?

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, JCSJCS said:

Thanks! This allowed it to pass the errors. The file did change in tone slightly, the colours are a tad off.

1 hour ago, JCSJCS said:

Still though, why does the entire document change in colour/tone when only the text is rasterised?

I don't understand. You seem to say that both, converting text to curves AND rasterization influences color?

– Sure it's not a profile issue?
– What PDF viewer do you use?
– Does it also occur if you export as PDF/X-4 ?