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How to open a PDF and keep the original letter shapes?


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If I open a PDF with anything else (like photoshop or a web browser) it does not matter if my system doesn't have the fonts.

It just shows the shapes for letters that were saved in the PDF.

When I open a pdf with Affinity Photo or Designer it always replaces the font with a generic font even when I specifically uncheck the Replace missing fonts option.

I need to open a pdf from the government and increase contrast so it will print properly on a dodgy black and white laser printer and add one line of text and a photo but every Affinity app changes the fonts!

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Another issue I have is I can't figure out a way copy/merge an affinity designer document down to a pixel layer so I can overlay the document on top of itself and multiply it to get more contrast so I can print it properly on this disappointment of a laser printer.

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Yes, that's the way the Affinity applications work. To Open the PDF for editing (or to Place it in Interpreted mode) you must have the fonts installed. 

Others have asked for an enhancement in this area, but we have no idea whether Serif will ever provide that capability.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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2 minutes ago, thinsoldier said:

Another issue I have is I can't figure out a way copy/merge an affinity designer document down to a pixel layer so I can overlay the document on top of itself and multiply it to get more contrast so I can print it properly on this disappointment of a laser printer.

Easiest may be to Export it as a raster file (JPG, TIFF, PNG) and then Open that.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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47 minutes ago, thinsoldier said:

I need to open a pdf from the government and increase contrast so it will print properly on a dodgy black and white laser printer and add one line of text and a photo but every Affinity app changes the fonts!

What is the cause of the contrast issue? Is the text gray or a color?
You can use GhostScript (free) to convert all the text to black.
Or is there a background or something else?
Can you attach the PDF file?

You may be able to make the text black, place the PDF as pass-through,
and then add your text and image on top.

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