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Callout box is blank in Reader 9 if it contains Chinese text

Forum Index > Collaboration & Commenting > Callout box is blank in Reader 9 if it contains Chinese text
2010-10-29 06:58:04
chedbe
Registered: Sep 9 2010
Posts: 3
Answered

I have staff using Acrobat 9 Pro to do commenting & markup of CAD files. They enter text in Comment and Callout boxes in English and Chinese (due to the nature of the project). What we've discovered is that any Callout boxes that have both languages in them or perhaps only Chinese in them display as empty or blank Callout boxes in Adobe Reader 9 (9.3.3 & 9.4.0). Anyone that has Adobe Acrobat or Bluebeam PDF Revu can see the Chinese in the Callout boxes fine.
 
Any Chinese text that appears in the document is fine in Reader. The problem appears to be restricted to the Callout boxes.
 
I also tried installing the Reader 9 Font Packs but it didn't help. I didn't think it would because other aspects of the PDF are OK.
 
Suggestions?
 
Windows 7
Fonts are Embedded

My Product Information:
Reader 9.3, Windows
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2010-10-29 08:11:07
#1
chedbe
Registered: Sep 9 2010
Posts: 3
Oh by the way....I just called the Adobe Acrobat support line about this and it was hopeless getting useful assistance. The person just kept repeating that I need to install the specific Chinese font used in the document in order for Reader to display the text. Um, I get that, understand it, know what that's all about. They didn't seem to hear me when I said I even have Adobe Reader 9.4 AND Acrobat 9.4 installed on the same computer (for troubleshooting this issue), the PDF is fine in Acrobat but not Reader. The person also didn't seem to hear me or understand that yes, the Chinese font is installed on the computer (even though it is embedded in the PDF as well). And I've been able to reproduce the problem on 5 computers so far. She referred me to do a post in the forums if I didn't understand how to install the missing font.

Reflecting on the conversation I realize that she was probably not skilled with the Acrobat family of products but just reading scripted possible solutions from a knowledge base.
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2010-11-02 06:33:02
#2
chedbe
Registered: Sep 9 2010
Posts: 3
Solved. Install ALL of the following Adobe Reader 9 Font Packs:
Chinese Simplified
Chinese Traditional
Japanese

Even though the PDF only used Chinese Simplified and I already had the two Chinese font packs installed, the Chinese text in the Callout box didn't display until I also installed the Japanese font pack.

Since I could reproduce this problem on multiple computers I tried installing different combinations of the three font packs and the Callout never worked properly until all three font packs were installed.

How did I figure it out? Well, we never had this issue in our Windows XP/Adobe Reader 8/Acrobat 8 environment so I found an installer for Reader 8. After installing Reader 8 and opening one of my PDFs that contain the Chinese text in the Callouts, Reader 8 prompted me that "this document requires the following missing component: . Please click OK to silently download...". Adobe Reader 8 performed this popup three times, one for each of the font packs listed above. Once all three were installed the PDF displayed and printed properly.Note: there are font packs for each version of Reader.

Now Adobe Reader 9 is suppose to have the same behavior of alerting you when a PDF requires a missing component. However, none of my computers are doing such. I checked the Reader preferences and didn't find anything that this functionality is turned off.
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