Font Licensing Problem

[SoCalMacDude]

I have a large and complex database that uses only Helvetica, Ariel, and Lucida Grande, and was developed on a Mac.

Has worked great on Macs & PC's for a couple of years. Now that they are getting new Windows 7 machines, all looks great until my script creates a PDF file to email or fax, I get an error that there are some fonts not licensed for embedding!

So the PDF is completely void of text!

It appears that the PC dosn't have Helvetica or at least not the same one.

Where can I find the PC versions that match the Mac versions? Adobe does not have Ariel or Lucida Grande.

Is there another solution here, like some way to supress the problem!

[Vaughan]

I only use fonts that are cross-platform and part of the OS default installs. Helvetica is not but Arial is. (Ariel is the Little Mermaid.)

Most people cannot tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica.

[SoCalMacDude]

Ariel doesn't work either.

[Vaughan]

I suspect there are other fonts on the layout that are not standard. Make a new simple database to run a test of saving to pdf using just Arial.

I have never run into this problem.

[benwiggy]

Some fonts have an "Do not Embed" flag set: though these are usually rare, and not often found on system fonts. I would be surprised if Helvetica did not allow embedding.

On the Mac, you can use Font Book's Get Info to see whether the "Do Not embed" flag is set or not. I imagine that there is a similar utility on Windows, either as part of the OS or as a third-party utility.

If the Mac fonts are .ttf or .ttc, then they will also work on Windows. Of course, you will need to check whether your licence agreement entitles you to copy them over.