Font substitution, Geneva 10 becomes Gill Sans 12

Question

Font substitution, Geneva 10 becomes Gill Sans 12

I use an application developed with 4D. The developer tells me he has specified that client statements use Geneva 10 when printed. My computer and our secretary's computer (both OS X 10.5.2) print the statements in Gill Sans 12. The developer is not much help, he merely points out that "your printer is substituting another font for Geneva 10." How is this possible? Geneva is a required, active System font. Font Book says my Geneva is OK; it's located at /System/Library/Fonts/Geneva.dfont. How can and why would the application substitute Gill Sans 12 for Geneva 10? How can I make it not substitute? Any help? Thanks.

MacBook Pro 2.33GHz 2GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on May 12, 2008 4:59 PM

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Answer 1

PAHU

Level 6

16,723 points

May 15, 2008 6:03 AM in response to sticky moments

I think you may find that the developer is correct in that it is not the application that is substituting the font but the printer. This is all the more likely if the printer supports postscript, rather than it being a raster printer like an inkjet.

My guess is that your printer defaults to Gill Sans 12, or something very similar, when there is no over-riding font information. You would see this if you printed from Terminal.

If you check the properties for the printer driver, there may be a section about font substitution. If not, you may be able to change the printer so that Geneva 10 is set as the default.

PaHu

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Answer 2

May 29, 2008 9:12 PM in response to PAHU

PaHu, thanks for your reply. I'm back on this problem and still trying to understand what's going on. I have several printers available to me (LaserJet 4000, 4100; Canon iR330; Dell 5110cn; Canon iP5200R; Canon i90) and I can print to PDF using Adobe PDF 8.0 or OS X built-in. All of these devices yield the same result: printed statements appear in Gill Sans 12, not in the Geneva 10 the developer says he coded. I opened one of these PDFs in Smultron and I see the following:

<< /Type /FontDescriptor /Ascent 918 /CapHeight 816 /Descent -230 /Flags 4
/FontBBox [125 0 875 750] /FontName /XWJJWL+GillSans /ItalicAngle 0 /StemV
0 /MaxWidth 1088 /XHeight 612 /FontFile2 14 0 R >>

and a bit further along:

<< /Type /Font /Subtype /TrueType /BaseFont /XWJJWL+GillSans /FontDescriptor
16 0 R /Widths 17 0 R /FirstChar 33 /LastChar 33 /ToUnicode 18 0 R >>

and a bit further along still:

<< /Type /FontDescriptor /Ascent 918 /CapHeight 816 /Descent -230 /Flags 32
/FontBBox [0 -229 1041 750] /FontName /XAKWFW+GillSans /ItalicAngle 0 /StemV
0 /MaxWidth 1088 /XHeight 612 /FontFile2 20 0 R >>

and finally:

<< /Type /Font /Subtype /TrueType /BaseFont /XAKWFW+GillSans /FontDescriptor
22 0 R /Widths 23 0 R /FirstChar 32 /LastChar 121 /Encoding /MacRomanEncoding >>

I don't understand how all the printers I use yield Gill Sans 12, not Geneva 10; and how the PDF drivers do likewise. Is this really the printer (all of them?) substituting a font or is this a CUPS issue, or is the developer steering me the wrong way? How can I determine what's going on?

I don't know how to "check the properties for the printer driver;" as this is happening across all the printers I've installed.

Thanks again for your reply. Any other thoughts, or, better still, answers? I appreciate your time.

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Answer 3

Ham

Level 2

175 points

May 30, 2008 6:27 PM in response to PAHU

PAHU: This is not how OS X works. For raster device the bits are imaging on the computer. For PostScript Devices, the fonts are embedded in the Print Job. There are a few PS generating applications that could reference the printer fonts, but 99.9% of all PS printing from the mac does not.

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Answer 4

May 30, 2008 11:10 PM in response to sticky moments

Is it possible to get a copy of the application you are using and some sample files? If so, you can mail them to me at jblancha@mac.com. Is it necessary to have 4D as well? Thanks.

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Answer 5

PAHU

Level 6

16,723 points

May 31, 2008 5:12 AM in response to sticky moments

Based on your latest information, since all the printers and the pdf writer are getting the same result, then it does sound like the app. I assumed you had one printer for your original post, which could cause a change in output.

The pdf info you show certainly only makes mention of GillSans. If this occurs with the built-in pdf function, then it is a good indicator that the spool file contains that only GillSans is being used.

A generic postscript printer could also be used as a test. The resulting ps file can be analysed by PitStop to determine the font data used in the file. If you can post the ps file somewhere I can run it through PitStop at work...

FTR it does now look like the application developer is wrong and should be more helpful.

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Answer 6

PAHU

Level 6

16,723 points

May 31, 2008 5:31 AM in response to Ham

I don't entirely agree with you Ham re PostScript. If OS X and its applications embedded the font in to the spool file, how do you get font substitution in some output? Our RIPS are set to use Courier for substitution and every now and then a customer sample file will have this result. This is mostly from InDesign CS2 & CS3.

With reference to the ppd value *DefaultFont, the explanation from Adobe is;

"This gives the name of the default font provided by findfont if the requested
font is not available. For many devices this field
will contain the name Courier. If this value is Error, an execution error will
occur if the font is not found. Any other value implies that a font substitution
will take place (such as substituting Courier)".

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Answer 7

Jun 3, 2008 8:43 AM in response to PAHU

PaHu, thanks again for the feedback. I'm out of my element with regard to printing. The contents of the PDF file I quoted previously were copied/pasted from the file that resulted from the built-in PDF function in OS X. Per your most recent post, I further created a Generic Postscript Printer and selected it to produce a PS version of a sample statement. The file, Patient_43.ps, is in my Public folder at .Mac (username is crobbins). I am grateful for your offer to scan this file with the tools you have to determine the font specification. (The ~100KB file contains no real patient information, but I'm not going to leave it in my Public folder for too long.) I look forward to hearing your results. Thanks again.
(BTW, there's no difference in the result under 10.5.3).

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Answer 8

orangekay

Level 5

4,085 points

Jun 3, 2008 9:12 AM in response to sticky moments

Clear your font caches and check for font conflicts. If that solves nothing then the developer (or 4D) probably did something wrong.

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Answer 9

Jun 3, 2008 9:43 PM in response to orangekay

I've now tried clearing the font caches under 10.5.2 and 10.5.3, but that hasn't solved my problem. I see no font conflicts. Geneva appears healthy.
Thanks for the suggestion.

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Answer 10

orangekay

Level 5

4,085 points

Jun 4, 2008 12:13 AM in response to sticky moments

Sounds like a bug then.

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