Simplified Chinese font - Displaying spaces in Chrome/IE

[iT63]

Hi,

Trying to create a PDF/JPG with Simplified Chinese font using InDesign Server CS5.5 and  InDesign Template

When I generate a PDF/JPG, empty spaces are being displayed instead on Chinese font characters in Chrome and IE, looks good in Firefox. But we use only IE/Chrome.

The same PDF looks different in Firefox and IE/Chrome.

The InDesign template is using the following fonts:

1) Futura Std Light Condensed

2) DFPHeiGB5Hk W9

3) DFPHeiGB5Hk W5

These fonts are already installed in my InDesign server.

Even it looks odd in Acrobat Reader DC (spaces) - Version: 2017.009.20044

I have observed that Traditional Chinese font is looks good in all browsers. However Simplified Chinese font is not visible.

I believe the InDesign server is exporting Chinese font to the PDF (otherwise Firefox could not display it), but they are not visible in remaining browsers and Acrobat reader.

Am I missing something here.

Can you please suggest what needs to be done to correct this behavior.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[Steve Werner]

There is no control over how a web browser PDF reader displays anything but the simplest of PDF files. You should complain to the developer of the browser.

What does the PDF look like in Adobe Acrobat or Reader which follows a much higher standard for PDF rendering?

[iT63]

Hi Steve Werner,

Thank for the reply.

Is there  anything that  I can do from InDesign server  side to render these fonts in all browsers?

[Steve Werner]

Not that I've ever heard of. The problem is almost certainly in the PDF rendering software. What does it look like in Adobe Acrobat or Reader as I asked before?

[iT63]

It looks as same as Chrome/IE.

[Steve Werner]

I would say that this is now above my pay grade.

If there is some reason that Adobe Reader/Acrobat is not rendering the Chinese properly, I don't understand why. It could be a bug. But I know nothing about PDF files from Chinese language text. I would say you should probably try a different Chinese font to see if the issue can be replicated. There's also the complication of using an old version of InDesign Server which almost none of us use.

Chances are, only a couple of our occasional visitors (Dov Isaac from Adobe  and our foreign langauge expert Joel Cherney) have the expertise to help here. It's a very specialized issue. 

[Joel Cherney]

Thanks for the callout, Steve! I do think I know the answer to this one - although it's really David Goodrich who is the Forums' Own Chinese Expert.

Whenever I see the DF Hei fonts, I always expect Trad Chinese, not Simplified. If you look, there are Simplified glyphs being automatically substituted in your Firefox screenshot. The font name declares its encoding; GB5 is, I assume, a reference to Big5 encoding which is strictly for Trad Chinese. The substituted Simplified fonts look a hell of a lot like the DF Hei fonts, it's true, but the baseline is raised a tiny bit, if you look closely. I am not sure why Firefox's pdf.js is willing to substitute missing glyphs, but obviously neither Chrome nor Acrobat is willing to do so.

Do you have any Simplified Chinese fonts installed on the server on which your PDF is being generated? (I suspect you do, even if it's just SimHei - or something similarly bland.) Can you give that a try and see what comes out the other end?

[Steve Werner]

Ah, Joel to the rescue! Thanks for stepping in.

[iT63]

Thanks for the insight Joel.

SimHei font is already installed in our InDesign server.

I might need to create an InDesign template which we are using to generate this PDF, with SimHei font in it.

I will try generating PDF with such template and get back to you.

Please find the Link to the current InDesign template.

After reading your reply, I observed that Firefox's pdf.js is substituting the same Character in all missing places (spaces).

To test this, I copied all the text from my database to a MS-Word document and generated a PDF from Word.

Which looks good and these characters are different from what Firefox is displaying.

Link to Word document

Link to PDF generated with Word document

Also, is there anything to be done from encoding side?

When I check the properties of the PDFs (good and bad PDFs) in Acrobat reader, I observed the following in Fonts tab

PDF generated from InDesign

PDF generated from MS-Word (with  - LiQun Ye Geometric Trimming Chinese Fontt - Simplified ) :

PDF generated from MS-Word (with  - MingLiu font - which already available in my machine ) :

Sorry for my long reply, under assumption that they might help you to guide me in right direction.

[iT63]

Hi Joel,

Few lines to add..

Apart from PDF, I also generate a JPG file from the InDesign template with Chinese text.

Even the JPG file does not have these Chinese characters. The same empty spaces just like PDF.

[Jongware]

Aren't those missing characters also missing in the InDesign document itself?

The "space" may just be because those specific characters are not available in your font of choice. I can't test because I don't have your font, and the Chinese fonts I tried all contain the correct characters. But it is substantiated by your MS Word screenshot: you can clearly see that some characters are (silently!) taken from another font. That is Word's default behavior; InDesign does not do this.

[Joel Cherney · Accepted solution]

I am not really a user of ID Server. However, you are correct: what you need to do is open up the template and change the Chinese font there, but not to MingLiu, which is another Trad font. (It does look look like It should have all the glyphs necessary, though.) I didn't see that Firefox has substituted the same glyph every time-that must be an error. Your sample generated from Word demonstrates this.

And the estimable Jongware is of course correct - MS Word willhappily substitute fonts without informing you.

[iT63]

Hi Joel,

Thanks for your guidence.

I tried with other Simplified chinese font (LiQun Ye Geometric Trimming Chinese Fontt - Simplified), now I got the correct result.

Please suggest what should be the next step.