Crystal->Pdf with embedded fonts?

[Former Member]

We generate pdf's from Crystal Reports 8.5 using ActivePDF (PDF Creator\PDFCreator.tlb), wrapped for use from Delphi7.

In order to resolve a intermitten "garbled fonts" issue, we'd like to try specifying that the fonts be embedded when the PDF is created, although I don't see anything in the PDFCreator interface which would allow us to do this.

Is there a different interface which would allow us to create PDF's with embedded fonts from Delphi7/Crystal 8.5, or do you have any clues on how to do this with our existing configuration.

Thanks,

[former_member11696 · Accepted solution]

Hello,

CR does not embed fonts due to Font licensing issues. So the font must be on the PC that is viewing the PDF.

Also, back in 8.5 there were issues with PDF, your best bet would be to download any patches for 8.5 and see if that works. There was an updated PDF export dll called crxf_pdf.dll, check your runtime to see if this is the one you are using, if not download the database and export dll patch and test again.

Do you have the same issue when exporting to PDF in CR Designer? If not then I would ask the ActivePDF (PDF Creator\PDFCreator.tlb) to look into the problem. It's likely in that wrapper where the problem lies...

As Ludek indicated CR 8.5 is way past it's end of life so not changes will be done to the export dll.

Thank you

Don

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks for both responses. Crystal 8.5 isn't the only long-out-of-support component we have running mission critical apps, and the management team (if you can call it that) somehow can't bring themselves to recognize the risks, and instead spend all our energies on some endless java framework or something.

We've been producing 10-40,000 crystal->pdf pages per night for years without this problem, (and continue to), but then ran into this problem in an attempt to replace the out-of-support ActivePDF Spooler with a spooler from 3-Heights. The font-garbling only occurs under 3-Heights, and then only deep into the run, maybe 10 or 15,000 pages in. If we run a job of say, 5,000 pages or less under the 3-Heights spooler, then we'd probably never see the problem. Considering the millions of pages successfully produced with Crystal 8.5, it doesn't seem likely that that's where the problem is. The problem could be in the spooler, the print driver or the printer frimware. 3-Heights is faster then ActivePDF, (one of our objects is the feed the printer at or above its production rate of 70 pages a second), so I'm guessing that the problem is in the print driver, where where hitting a buffer overrun when we increase the throughput, and the theory is that if all the fonts were embedded, then we wouldn't hit this patch.

So maybe that clarifies the nature of the problem. I tell you, it sure is a pain to test, as you might imagine.

[former_member11696 · Accepted solution]

Hello,

This definitely looks like it's a memory leak in the 3-Heights driver you are using now or it may be a memory leak in the printer driver. HP had issues with their DMExtra structure size, it was returned as the wrong size which caused problems for CR. Setting the structure size to zero fixed it for CR in a win32 app but the RDC handles this differently.

You may want to look into updating your printer driver and/or reporting this to the 3-Heights people to see if they have a fix.

I'll mark the post as resolved, if you ever get a fix from the printer driver or 3-Heights support then you can add a note.

Thanks again and good luck

Don

[Former Member]

Thanks for all your input, all the comments were useful, and helps clarify what we might do to resolve this.

[former_member183750]

Considering that CR 8.5 is closing in on 10 years as "out of support", it will be very hard to get an answer. I can tell you that later versions of CR do use embedded fonts when exporting to PDF. Up to CR version XI r2 you could use both the VCL and RDC. From CR 12 onwards you are limited to using the VCL as described here:

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/80c191b8-6664-2b10-498e-e1295146...

Ludek