Printing: Unrecognized Characters

[ptc-4334079]

Everytime I print, either to any of a number of printers, or to pdf I get little squares whereever equal signs, paranthesis or multiplication "dots" are. Is anyone aware of a fix for this? I've been trying off and on for a few days to resolve this.

See the attachment

Thanks

[mzeftel]

We have sometime seen this to a specific printer, but not to PDF and XPS. Can you try printing to XPS, which you do by Save As XPS?

Are you on an XP or a Win7 computer?

Can you list which printer you have and check if you have the latest printer driver in your computer.

Thanks,

Mona

[RichardJ]

Which pdf writer are you using?

[VladimirN]

Hello!

Please attach your Mathcad Prime worksheet.

[ptc-4334079]

Hi All,

Thanks for the help on this. Here is the requested information:

Computer:

XP Pro Service Pack 3

Printers I've tried this on:

HP Designjet 500

Xerox WorkCentre 7545 PCL6

PDF Printer I've tried this on:

PDFFactory Pro (3.x)

All yield the same results.

Attached is a sample file with just a few lines of math on it. I've also attached output from PDFFactory Pro and a scanned copy of a print out from the Xerox printer mentioned above.

Thanks,

John

[RichardJ]

This was printed using CutePDF, and it looks OK.

[mzeftel]

John,

Perhaps the issue is a corrupted font on your system. Can you reload both Symbol font and the Mathcad UniMath font. It sounds like they are not working with your printer drivers.

Mona

[VladimirN]

I have printed a file in format PDF (using Adobe PDF Printer (download Adobe Acrobat Reader here: http://get.adobe.com/reader/)), and also has saved a file in format XPS and in both cases no problems with a font existing (files can be find in attachment). I think that here any problem in system with fonts. It is possible to compare two files PDF (types of fonts are various):

Your version:

My version:

[ptc-4334079]

Thanks for the help everyone. I have tried to reload fonts, but am still having the same problem. I think I'm going to reinstall Mathcad and see if that fixes it. I'm kind of out of ideas. By the way, I still have Mathcad 2001i Professional installed, and it prints just fine.

Thanks

[RichardJ]

By the way, I still have Mathcad 2001i Professional installed, and it prints just fine.

That might be the problem. You can install versions 11 and later at the same time, but that is not true for earlier versions, including 2001i. Other people have done so, and report that it works, but those versions were not designed to coexist and so you may get unpredictable behavior.

Of course, it might not be the problem too

[VladimirN]

And what "Mathcad" fonts you have installed on your system Windos XP (you can look it in the folder "C:\Windows\Fonts")? Here are the fonts that installed on my Windows Vista 32-bit:

[ptc-4334079]

In my C:\Windows\Fonts folder, I only have the following two mathcad fonts:

MathcadUniMathPrime and

MathcadUniMathPrime-Italic

It seems I'm missing some fonts. Are the others used by Prime? Can anyone send them along to me?

Thanks

[MikeArmstrong]

See if these work.

Mike

[ptc-4334079]

Thanks Mike.

The font files you provided me, and the ones that I already had installed both cannot be installed on my system. I get the following message when I double click the files:

If I drag and drop them into my C:\Windows\Fonts folder I get this message:

I actually moved my original font files onto my desktop to make room for the new font files. Now I have no mathcad prime fonts!

Mathcad prime won't start up either. Reinstall time?

Thanks,

John

[VladimirN]

John Umina wrote:

...I actually moved my original font files onto my desktop to make room for the new font files. Now I have no mathcad prime fonts!...

Drag and drop them back to "C:\Windows\Fonts".

[VladimirN]

John Umina wrote:

...Can anyone send them along to me?

Thanks

Please see the attachment.

[ptc-4334079]

Vladimir,

Thank you. These fonts install correctly on Windows 7, but will not install on my Windows XP machine, dragging and dropping them results in the message I am receiveing above.

I found this thread which basiclly describes my problem installing fonts: http://communities.ptc.com/thread/14410

So I know I'm not alone. There is a link at the end of this thread that seems to be broken, or removed. I am not sure if it can help, but it appears to be the last entry on the thread which seems somewhat promising.

I'm pretty sure I'm having a windows problem more than a MathCad problem at this point in time

Thanks

[VladimirN]

John,

Do you have Administrator rights when working in Win XP?

P.S. Also look at the problem solution here: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/395650, perhaps this will help.

[RichardJ]

If I recall correctly, yuo cannot install a font under XP if it already exists. Delete the Mathcad fonts from the fonts folder, then drag and drop the new font files into the fonts folder. That should work.

Did you try installing and printing using CutePDF? PDFFactory has documented problems with printing Mathcad documents (just search these forums for "PDFFactory").

[ptc-4334079]

I did try CutePDF. It still didn't work, same results as PDFFactory.

I actually reinstalled MathCAD Prime in the meanwhile, and still the same problem.

I have to deactivate the 3GB swith still. After testing that I'll repost.

[ptc-4334079]

Removed the 3GB switch, it didn't do anything. Same problem.

[RichardJ]

Have you reinstalled the symbol font (symbol.ttf)?

[ptc-4334079]

I did not REinstall it, I have it from before.

The installed font information:

OpenType Font, Digitally Signed True Type Outlines

Typeface name: Symbol

File size: 68 KB

Version: Version 1.60

[RichardJ]

Well, that's the same as mine. And anyway, a corrupted symbol font affects the displayed characters, not just the printed ones.

What happens if you write something in Word using the symbol and Mathcad fonts, and print that?

[ptc-4334079]

Ok so I tried to create a word document using the Symbol font and the Mathcad fonts.

The symbol font worked just fine, it displays correctly on the document and it prints fine.

The mathcad fonts, on the other hand, won't even allow me to use them. They do not show up in the list of fonts in Word, and when I go to the C:\Windows\Fonts folder and double click them I get a message saying "The requested file .... was not a valid font file."

So clearly windows is not seeing this file as a legitimate font file. Mathcad seems to be the only program that knows how to work with this file and does so until it is time to print at which point windows must step in again and the file becomes unrecoginized.

[RichardJ]

Well that's interesting. It works fine for me when I try the same experiement. Perhaps we are getting somewhere. Take a look here: http://http://www.thomasphinney.com/2008/12/no-font-instal/

[VladimirN · Accepted solution]

Richard Jackson wrote:

...Take a look here: http://http://www.thomasphinney.com/2008/12/no-font-instal/

Correct link: http://www.thomasphinney.com/2008/12/no-font-instal/

[RichardJ]

Oops

Thanks.

[VladimirN]

No problem.

[ptc-4334079]

That did it!

I first tried step 4 in the link above, which didn't work. I didn't change it back though. I then did step 2 in the link above. I used the Adobe fix. That worked.

pdfFactoryPRO still prints the symbols as unrecognized, but CutePDF works great and physical printing works as well.

Also, when I click on the fonts in the windows/fonts folder it shows the previews as it does for other fonts.

Thanks for all the help!