Problem with font in PDFs

[sdc_itservices]

Hi All,

My name is Ben Read and I am the network manager for South Downs College in Hampshire, England. One of our students is attempting to access your sheet music PDFs but our system doesn't appear to have the right font. I've tried using the built-in viewer and two different PDF readers but it's definitely a font issue. We're running Windows 7. The student was trying to access the Concerto for 2 Clarinets, Op.35 (Krommer, Franz). Can you tell me what font is required for the scores?

Many Thanks

Ben Read

[Choralia]

I opened one of the scores, and the following fonts are listed:

TimesNewRoman
TimesNewRoman,Italic
TimesNewRoman,Bold
Opus
OpusText
OpusSpecial

I wouldn't expect any problems with the TimesNewRoman group, so probably the problem is related to the Opus set, which is a font typically used by the Sibelius notation software.

Max

[sdc_itservices]

Hi Max,

That's really useful, thanks very much. Whereabouts did you look to find out which fonts were used? I spent over an hour trying to work it out before I opened a forum account in desperation!

Thanks

Ben

[steltz]

It's definitely the Opus font -- I found that file and also had problems with it. I'm not sure why -- I thought PDFs are supposed to be images, so I don't know why it is font-dependant.

[sdc_itservices]

It's true. I downloaded the PDF rather than viewing it in the browser and that let me view the properties. There are three Opus fonts required which aren't standard on Windows 7. I'll download them and roll them out to the network, so long as they're free, of course.

Thanks for your help, guys.

Ben

[KGill]

... I thought PDFs are supposed to be images, so I don't know why it is font-dependant.

PDFs can contain either formatted text or images; whenever you make a PDF from a typeset using notation software, it converts it into text with special fonts (that's why the file size is generally so minuscule, because it's much more efficient to store it as text than as a series of images). Most PDF printers will embed the necessary fonts in the file so that anyone can open it without problems - even if the font isn't installed on their computer - but I guess whatever program this uploader used to make the PDF didn't have that capability.

[Notenschreiber]

I'm using "Sibelius", so the opus fonts are on my computer and I have no problems to open the pdf file in my browser.
But the "viewer" doesn´t work. Should it not be eliminated from this special file?

[Carolus]

In many cases, you have to specifically check an option to embed the fonts used when creating a PDF file from a notation program like Sibelius. If this preference was left unchecked when the file was created, the Opus fonts were not embedded - hence the problem. Trying to print files like this will create real headaches also, unless you have a utility able to convert the font to filled-outlines.

[kalliwoda]

You can download the opus fonts for free with the sibelius scorch plugin (lets you view & print sibelius files if you do not own sibelius):
see http://www.sibelius.com/download/index.html

Even with the opus fonts installed on my mac (OS 10.4.11), there seems to be a problem with the new pdf-viewer and the files do not display properly. If I open the files in the Safari browser (i.e. download them) they display properly. Same also if I save them to my HD and open them with Adobe Reader.

And a related question: What are the criteria, which files are to be accessible with the new pdf-viewer: At the moment this seems to be very arbitrary... e.g. sometimes in a set of parts only one has the viewer / or even the opposite, all but one or two parts.
This has now been like that for about 2 weeks, so it is not a problem of work in progress, caching or similar. Any info how soon the viewer would be added in a more consistent way would be helpful.