Font problem in Preview

Hello,

I've been having trouble viewing pdf files in Preview. I run Tiger 10.4 on an iBook G4. When I open up certain pdf documents all the text appears as a black box with a black question mark inside. (File attached if you wanna take a look). I also tried viewing it in Safari with the same results, as well as with a program called PDF Viewer. My guess is that whatever font was used in the document is not recognizable. I have Version 3.0.9 of Preview.

I have tried running a program called Font Finagler but to no avail. Anyone ever come across this or know of a solution?

Thanks for you time!
Joe

Only place I've seen that is on some of the e-book sites where people are allowed to upload books to the site (ex. Scribd.com).

My thought was that the site must have done it after they found out the material was still under copyright instead of just deleting it. They leave the title page readable along with Chapter headings, etc., but none of the text of the book.

For any good answers from others, you'll to need to let 'em know where these pdf files came from so they can grab 'em and check them out to rule out whether it's your machine or an issue with the files themselves and nothing you can do about it.

joeym said:

Hello,

I've been having trouble viewing pdf files in Preview. I run Tiger 10.4 on an iBook G4. When I open up certain pdf documents all the text appears as a black box with a black question mark inside. (File attached if you wanna take a look). I also tried viewing it in Safari with the same results, as well as with a program called PDF Viewer. My guess is that whatever font was used in the document is not recognizable. I have Version 3.0.9 of Preview.

I have tried running a program called Font Finagler but to no avail. Anyone ever come across this or know of a solution?

Thanks for you time!
Joe

Click to expand...

I have the exact same issue on my Mac. I get a large PDF file on a monthly basis that has many excel files in it. I get the exact same issue with 2 excel sheets from one particular person. The other excel files view perfectly fine. The files come from probably 10 different people using Office 2007 all the way to 2010. But still I only get this issue with files from one individual. It views scrambled like the OP showed. The files view and print perfectly fine on a windows machine. I had a business associate resave the documents using a different name in his machine yet they still show on screen and print with question marks on mine. Weird. It's almost like a font is missing in my Mac Machine and Office is putting a place holder in the missing font location. The graphs are fine just the headers and descriptions are question marks.

Has anyone found a solution to the OP problem. In lieu of this is there another good well respected PDF program that I can try that does not cost an arm and a leg?

Thanks

Pat

More information regarding this anomaly. I downloaded the trail version of PDF Pen and it displays the 2 excel worksheets with the question mark in the graph titles as well. Though some titles are correct in the same excel worksheet. Sounds like something unique to this guys computer??? Even though everything looks good on Windows machines. I am the only Mac in about 100 computers so I am not getting much help as you can imagine.

So I'm still at a loss. Seems to me that my Mac may not have the font he is using?? Not sure.