Incorrect characters or fonts in print output?
Switching off automatic font substitution
Installing all fonts on the print server
Using universal font IDs (UFIs)
Incorrect characters or fonts in print output?
When printing over networks, it's possible that even though the user has selected the correct font in the application, the print output appears with a different font, or with incorrect or missing characters. The characters may also be set too far apart, run into each other, or even overlap.
This is due to the fact that the print jobs were not rendered where they originated. The following offers a guide for resolving such problems using Windows tools.
Updating ThinPrint
Since each new ThinPrint version improves the font management of the ThinPrint Output Gateway, the first step recommended for older ThinPrint versions is to update to the latest published version.
Updating printer drivers
Keep your printer drivers up to date. To do so, use Windows Update in Windows' Printers folder or Print Management.
Windows Update Button with printer driver installation
Switching off automatic font substitution
A function that ensures that the original fonts are not sent to the printer but are replaced in the printer or by the printer driver (by the fonts supplied with the firmware) dates back to the time when printer resources were limited. For example, instead of the font "Times New Roman", the font "Times" can actually be printed and instead of "Arial" the somewhat more delicate "Helvetica".
Although the fonts are not completely identical, in most cases the substitution is not even noticeable. However, since the introduction of OpenType or Unicode fonts with Windows 2000, the character sets no longer match (Unicode fonts can be recognized by the capital O in the font icon instead of the double T). As a result, special characters may be lost. If, for example, individual letters are missing in a printout or have been replaced by a square, the cause may be that the TrueType or PostScript (or Type 1) font installed for rendering the print job or in the printer only has 256 characters, whereas the OpenType font used in the text document has up to 65,536 characters.
missing letter in a printed text using the example of Arial
In addition, new Windows versions always come with completely new fonts.
Fonts in the Windows Character Map (arrows from top to bottom): OpenType, PostScript and TrueType font
You should therefore switch off automatic font substitution when printing in networks if the relevant printer driver menu allows this. However, this function can be labeled very differently depending on the manufacturer. You will most frequently find this designation: Replace with printer font. Select Download as Softfont to the printer instead. However, this function can also be called something completely different.
Download as Softfont: ensures that the font used is sent to the printer before the print job
Installing all fonts on the print server
Install all the fonts that your users use, not only on the computers where their applications are running, but also on all the print servers involved. Get an idea of which computers send print jobs via a print server ‒ for example terminal servers (or remote desktop session hosts), virtual desktops or workstations ‒ and which fonts are installed there. It is important that you always install all styles of a font ‒ for Arial this is at least the normal font "Arial (regular)" and the styles Arial italic, Arial bold and Arial bold italic.
Arial: here, nine font styles (= font files)
Embedding fonts in documents
If your users also want to print documents that were not processed in your company, these documents may only contain information about which font was used in the respective application. However, the font itself may not have been supplied ‒ e. g. by embedding it in the document. If the font of such a non-company document is installed on the print server on which the print jobs are rendered, there are usually no problems.
Conversely, it is possible to embed the fonts used in files that are to be sent to other companies, for example, so that the recipient can print the document as desired. You can then easily check whether the font embedding was successful for PDF files in Adobe Reader. To do this, select the following in Adobe Reader: Menu→ Document Properties→ Fonts.
fonts used in a PDF: Arial (not embedded), Calibri (only the characters used embedded) and Helvetica Neue (completely embedded)
In the above example, even though "Arial" was used in the original document, it is not embedded in the PDF. Of the "Calibri" font, only those characters actually used in the document are embedded (Embedded Subset), and all the characters of the font "HelveticaNeue-ThinCond" are embedded (Embedded).
Changing the font management
Using universal font IDs (UFIs)
With ThinPrint you can use the modern font management with universal font IDs (UFIs):
- Create the registry value DisableUFIs – either on the ThinPrint Client machine (with the print mode Driver Free Printing) or on the central print server (with the V-Layer print mode) in:
hkey_local_machine\software\ThinPrint\TpView - Choose the DWORD (reg_dword) type for DisableUFIs and set it to 0.
- Finally, restart the ThinPrint Client or the print spooler respectively.