Solving an export to PDF (PrintDraft) mystery

Question

Now and then I’ve encountered an issue where I can’t use Export to PDF for a particular project, where the report says the font cannot be accessed. But the font appears to be installed, I can see it in my fonts list.

It turns out, WIndows 10 lets you install font files only for a specific user, or for all users. If the font is installed only for the current user, the export to PDF process can’t access it.

To solve this, I went to C:\Users[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Fonts, found the font Export to PDF couldn’t find, right clicked on it and chose “Install for all users”
Update: Jan 2021: I believe this issue of fonts not installed for all users will also effect users of PTXPrint.

Answer 1

Further information about this issue can be found in this other post:

Non-admin installed fonts on Windows are not found by PrintDraft Helps

A user reported on another list that a font they installed on Windows 10 was not working with PrintDraft. Windows 10 has recently changed to allow non-administrators to install fonts. However, such user installed fonts are placed in a different location that admin installed fonts, and might not be listed in the Windows registry. I suspect the issue is with XeTeX, or xdvipdfmx (which is called by XeTeX) or one of the libraries XeTeX uses (such as FreeType or fontconfig). Thus I don’t think (at t…

Comments

Mystery solved!

Answer 2

That was really useful. I found this quote solved it:

Uninstall the font file, and then right-click on the font and select the Administrator option of “Install for all users”.

Remember to extract the font file from the .zip archive before right-clicking on it.

Answer 3

On Windows 11, you need to right-click on the font file, click “Show more options”, and then “Install for all users”.