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#31

PDF Generation / Re: Font issues with Blurb and...

Last post by a.l.e - October 26, 2026, 07:15:09 PM

Yes, the bug tracker is https://bugs.scribus.net .

And Google drive was just an example. Any file sharing platform will do!

#32

PDF Generation / Re: Font issues with Blurb and...

Last post by dmk - October 26, 2026, 06:10:21 PM

Thanks

You will not be able to upload the PDF to the bug tracker directly, but you will need to share it in something like Google drive (please mark it as: everybody with the link can see it) and put the link in the ticket.

I'll try and do that. I assume you mean http://bugs.scribus.net/. I don't have google drive, but I think I have dropbox. I'll have to re learn how to use it though

#33

PDF Generation / Re: Font issues with Blurb and...

Last post by a.l.e - October 26, 2026, 05:17:19 PM

The problem of many online print shops is that -- for understandable reasons -- they don't want to spend a lot of time with the clients, discussing about the jobs to be printed (or having being printed).

They try to reduce the variables they need to take into account and, as an example, as soon as they see that the PDF has been created with Scribus, they will just say that it's not supported and they have already had issues with its PDFs.

Of course they also have had issues with PDF produced by InDesign. And they will have their lot excuses ready also for those jobs.
Only if they don't find any simple reason why they can blame the client, they will look into it, find the issue, and reprint the PDF without the errors.
But that takes time and costs money, so they try to avoid to admit it...

Now, what can we the people of Scribus do?

Not much, since we don't even get the information why the job failed.
We only see that the font has not been printed correctly.

If you can share the PDF in the bug tracker.
Mark it as private, if you don't want it to be world readable (then only the devs will see it).

Maybe somebody can find the issue and:

• tell you what you did wrong, or
• fix the issue in Scribus

You will not be able to upload the PDF to the bug tracker directly, but you will need to share it in something like Google drive (please mark it as: everybody with the link can see it) and put the link in the ticket.

#34

Beginner Talk / Re: Embed/subset fonts: "Embed...

Last post by dmk - October 26, 2026, 03:08:40 PM

I'm also on the Blurb books font mission and spent time toggling embed and subset.The scribus docs state that some fonts are permanently set to subset by default in order to reduce file sizes. This feature can be altered per font in Scribus's preferences or the document setup in the fonts section.

#35

PDF Generation / Re: Font issues with Blurb and...

Last post by Aleks100 - October 26, 2026, 03:06:13 PM

https://fontlibrary.org/font/liberation-sans-unofficial-opentype-cff-version

FontForge sources of newer versions are here

https://github.com/liberationfonts/liberation-fonts/tree/main/src

I have zero experience with FontForge - I worked mostly in FontLab.

#36

PDF Generation / Re: Font issues with Blurb and...

Last post by dmk - October 26, 2026, 09:08:07 AM

Do you still have the PDF you have sent to Blurb?

Thanks for the interest. Yes, though not right now. The project is split into two PDF's, content and cover. The content PDF is a large file as it is a 40 page photo book but only has text on the final page shown above. I could create a new pdf with just the last page for simplicity, though obviously this won't then be the exact file blurb received.

#37

PDF Generation / Re: Font issues with Blurb and...

Last post by AdmFubar - October 25, 2026, 08:57:53 PM

I will never understand why people use TT fonts for print.

Because that is all they have.

#38

PDF Generation / Re: Font issues with Blurb and...

Last post by Aleks100 - October 25, 2026, 02:48:19 PM

I will never understand why people use TT fonts for print.

#39

PDF Generation / Re: Font issues with Blurb and...

Last post by a.l.e - October 25, 2026, 08:27:00 AM

Do you still have the PDF you have sent to Blurb?

#40

PDF Generation / Re: Font issues with Blurb and...

Last post by dmk - October 24, 2026, 12:49:37 PM

I've just hit this issue for the first time. I have successfully printed with blurb in the past, but the last time was way back in August 2016, so I appreciate a lot has changed since then. I wanted to post here to hopefully add another context that might narrow down the issue as testing is unlikely given I've just spent £40 on a book with printing errors.
After uploading I saw the warning:

It appears that this PDF was created with the Scribus Application. We have found that Scribus does not reliably embed fonts properly. Your file may not pass preflight. If you experience problems, please outline the fonts and upload again.

Annoyingly the file passed preflight and previewed on the website perfectly, so after some worry (and web searching for answers), I went ahead and printed.
Unfortunately This is what I received through the post:

The text that has been messed up is either in bold - rendered as boxes, or italics - not printed at all. However the cover (in a separate pdf) has italics that printed correctly. That cover was exported as PDF/X-4 because I needed transparency for a logo with a glow effect and a drop shadow I added in Scribus. The content I exported as PDF/X-1a:2001 though in the past I think I used PDF/X-3:2002 successfully, I just panicked after the warning and thought the oldest standard must be the most basic and most widely supported.
So, I checked the PDF's in Document Viewer (Evince). The content has:

• Producer: Scribus PDF Library 1.6.1
• Format: PDF-1.3
• Font: LiberationSans-Bold
•       TrueType
•       Encoding Custom
•       Embeded
• Font: LiberationSans-Italic
•       TrueType
•       Encoding Custom
•       Embeded
• Font: LiberationSans
•       TrueType(CID)
•       Encoding: Identity-H
•       Embeded subset

(There are 12 entries each for the bold and italic fonts).
The cover has:

• Producer: Scribus PDF Library 1.6.1
• Format: PDF-1.6
• Font: CharterBT-BoldItalic
•       Type 1
•       Encoding Custom
•       Embeded

(There are two entries for the bold font).
Next I checked the scribus settings, content:

• Compatibility: PDF/X-1a:2001
• Embedding Mode: Embed or Subset
• Fonts to embed: TTF Liberation Sans Bold
•                 TTF Liberation Sans Italic
• Fonts to subset: TTF Liberation Sans Regular

and cover:

• Compatibility: PDF/X-4
• Embedding Mode: Embed or Subset
• Fonts to embed: 1PS Bitstream Charter Bold Italic
• Fonts to subset: TTF Liberation Sans Regular

So, the cover has one line of text running down the spine which has printed correctly in italics. The content was produced with one text box which wraps around an image and contains all the text with different sizes and fonts. The italics and bold have not printed and the regular has.

It appears that my PDF does not contain correctly embedded TTF Liberation Sans Bold or TTF Liberation Sans Italic.