Arial Font Issue

[Anonymous]

OK. This has been an issue with me for years now, and I've tried searching this forum for answers to no avail. Since there are 130+ pages of Arial issues, I'm sure this one is not unique, but I thought I'd troll the forum to see if anyone has finally figured this out. To start with, I'm using vanilla AutoCAD 2017 on a 64 bit, Win7 Pro Machine with 16GB of RAM. I create what I call detail drawings, (which are basic line drawings) to show things like overall dimensions, certain heights, etc... I always add a line of text at the top of the drawing that identifies what the product is, using a defined Text Style called Arial, which of course uses the arial.ttf font. In a brand new drawing, the font always displays properly, and plots as searchable text in a PDF. At some point in time after closing, reopening, editing, etc... the drawing, the font gets corrupted and displays very irregularly, or very rastered. (See attachment) It's almost like it loses it's font info, because when I create a PDF with it like this, it's no longer recognized as a font. (I use AcropPlot to create the PDF files, and Adobe to do minor editing) I have tried using the Flatten command, I have tried setting Z elevation to zero, and I believe everything else that's been suggested, but nothing has worked. Arial is the only TTF that I use, so I have no idea if other TTF fonts have this same problem. Seeing as this font is used so heavily with AutoCAD, it just seems unlikely that this wouldn't have been addressed by AutoDESK by now. Obviously something I'm doing while in the drawing is causing this to happen, but I haven't the faintest idea what it is. I can be in the drawing and it's fine, close and reopen it at some point, and it's corrupted. Has anybody been able to figure out how to "fix" this once it happens?

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thanks for the input regarding this font issue.

Can you describe your configuration for me please?

OS version and build

AutoCAD version  (type About to see your exact version)

Do you have any add-ins/Plug-ins

Which driver are you using to plot/produce your PDF files?

Can you please also share one of your files that has a page setup applied (so i can see your plot settings) and also give me the plot style  you use along with the resulting PDF.

I am happy to look into this issue for you.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[Anonymous]

OS: Win 7 Pro, service Pack 1

Autocad version: N.301.0.0  2017.1.1 Update.  See the same issue on 2016 too.

No addins or Plugins

We see this issue with both the Adobe, Bluebeam, and Acroplot drivers.

Since my last post, I have discovered that your Autodeck drivers do not have this problem.  In years past, the Autodesk PDF drivers were much inferior to the Acroplot driver, so we used that one for many years.  However, with the 2015 version of AutoCAD, that driver stopped working well, and Acroplot didn't seem to be bothering to fix it, so we migrated to Bluebeam.  Then it was only just in the last couple weeks that our staff started noticing issues with the Bluebeam output.  Looks like our immediate fix is to simply use the Autodesk drivers.  

So the basic problem with the current Adobe, Bluebeam, and Acroplot drivers is that they seem to be ignoring the setting to plot text as text, embedding the fonts into the pdf.  Despite carefully checking those settings, they keep making the text graphics, which is then subject to pixelization.  You can reduce the problem by running up the resolution, but at the expense of exponentially larger output files.

Intrestingly, the "plot transparency" setting impacts this issue too.  With that setting turned off, the letters are not stair-stepped like you normally see with pixelization, but rather they have wavy edges.  As a user, that makes not sense to me.  Why should the processing of object transparency impact how text is rendered?

When we were working on this earlier this week, we only had the problem with the Arial font.  Arial Narrow, for example, wasn't showing the problem.  Today, however, I can't reproduce that result.  Now I'm seeing the issue with all TrueType fonts.

eTransmit of an example file and zip file of example PDF output from each driver attached.

Andrew B.

[john.vellek]

HI @Anonymous,

Thank you for the files and the further description of the problem. Obviously I have no control or extra insight as to how the non-AutoCAD drivers perform. I suggest you pursue their support forums as I suspect there will be some conversations there that might improve this for you.

In the mean time, I will look at your files and see if I can make any further suggestions to improve this issue from the AutoCAD side.  Unfortunately I do not have the PDF utilities/drivers that you are using so my results will likely be limited.

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

I did take a look at your files and with the use of the AutoCAD PDF driver, the fonts look fine.  I hope that yoiu have some success in finding a solution form AcroPlot or BlueBeam if those are your PDF drivers of choice.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[Scott.Clingan]

A little late to this thread but i came across this issue today when i imported layouts from a contractor's set of drawings. The Arial font looked fine on screen but when i went to plot it it was hollow. I tried doing a print preview of just the items in model space and the text showed up fine. Ends up the view ports i had imported from the contractor's drawings had the "shade plot" setting set to "Legacy" After changing them to "As displayed" the text prints properly. 

[Anonymous]

I known it's late.

Not sure if included with all versions of Autocad :

Have you tried to turn "off" Hardware Acceleration.

Command: graphicsconfig

[01VHR9R]

Please see this file cad & photo, I have the issue with AutoCAD LT 2018. 

Arial and Arial Narrow fonts combine into one text and mess the whole drawing.

(Computer Dell Precision T5610, Win 7 Professional, Intel Xeon E5-2609@2.5GHz,  16 Gb ram, Nvidia Quadro K2000)

[john.vellek]

Hi @01VHR9R,

I am sorry for my delayed response as I have been away from the office for the last couple of weeks. When I open your file in AutoCAD 2018.1.2, I am not seeing any problems with the fonts. I am doing this on Windows 10 however as I don't have a Windows 7 machine immediately available.

Is your AutoCAD LT fully updated?

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[scorpion156cm]

 Hello,

I do not want to get overly excited and I want to keep my gratitude in reserve , until I try to duplicate the missing Arial font errors and unexpected crashes of both CAD and Adobe when I try to plot to pdf from CAD a few more times, but I just put all my text on zero in the Z axis as you suggested and what the heck do you know, it seemed to work.

This is an on and off again frustration I have been dealing with for a couple of years now and if this is the fix, I thank you very much for taking the time to post this solution.

Jeff