Is there a way to know/tell which fonts are used in a pdf file?

Question

I downloaded a pdf file from here . I am/was using evince and saw that more than half of the pages are missing characters/font information or something. I am getting rectangles. Is there a way to -

a. Find a way which fonts are being used in that specific document
b. Find which equivalent fonts are in Debian which would allow me to see the document somewhat.

I tried evince but it doesn't tell/complain which fonts are missing.

Even using pdfinfo is using -

[$] pdfinfo Music\ Tech\ -\ October\ 2016.pdf                                                                                       
Title:          Music Tech - October 2016
CreationDate:   Fri Sep 23 08:48:45 2016 IST
ModDate:        Fri Sep 23 08:48:45 2016 IST
Tagged:         no
UserProperties: no
Suspects:       no
Form:           none
JavaScript:     no
Pages:          116
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      595.68 x 840.71 pts
Page rot:       0
File size:      14783331 bytes
Optimized:      yes
PDF version:    1.6

Look forward to know how I can fix this.

I would say it's more a rendering problem, than a problem of missing fonts. Both, evince and okular show me the same fonts in the document properties, but okular renders properly, no idea why, though. — Jaleks, Jan 06 '17 at 19:29
The idea that you need fonts contradicts my idea of what a PDF is. As far as I am concerned a PDF is like a picture. It can be sent to somebody who has a different OS, who doesn't have the fonts and they should still see it in its entirety. — , Jan 06 '17 at 19:43
oh...k.... so it's a rendering issue, reported upstream https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=99304 . Hopefully will be fixed in due course. — shirish, Jan 06 '17 at 19:49
@arochester you're mistaken about what a PDF is. A PDF *can* embed fonts, but it doesn't have to. PDF is much closer to Postscript than to, e.g., PNG. (What you're thinking of is closer to PDF/A which is a set of restrictions to make PDF suitable for archiving) — derobert, Jan 06 '17 at 19:58
@shirish you should turn your comment above into an answer, and accept it (so that other users know this question has been answered). — Stephen Kitt, Jan 08 '17 at 17:21

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 27 '20 at 15:39

I was able to figure out the fonts, using pdffonts (from Xpdf):

[$] pdffonts Music\ Tech\ -\ October\ 2016.pdf

Syntax Warning: Could not parse ligature component "facebook" of "facebook_sign" in parseCharName
Syntax Warning: Could not parse ligature component "sign" of "facebook_sign" in parseCharName
name                                 type              encoding         emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
OUYRDP+Akkurat                       Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes no  [none]
TGDSFA+OpticalBeta                   Type 1C           Custom           yes yes no  [none]
PVKQNR+Akkurat-Bold                  Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes no  [none]
OGKWQO+DINOT-CondBold                Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes no  [none]
QSWCQY+DINOT-CondLight               Type 1C           Custom           yes yes no  [none]
EOEYOT+Akkurat-Bold-Identity-H       CID Type 0C       Identity-H       yes yes no  [none]
QKRTJM+Akkurat-Light                 Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes no  [none]
SECIQX+Akkurat-LightItalic           Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes no  [none]
VOWOQW+DINOT-CondBold-SC700          Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes no  [none]
ZSFBVW+OpenSans-Bold                 Type 1C           Custom           yes yes no  [none]

Actually you can also see it in Evince when open the file in Properties but that doesn't help.

It became clear that in okular it works but not in evince which means something is wrong in evince. Now as poppler is responsible for all font rendering and all have filed a bug upstream https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=99304 where it will hopefully be fixed.

Is there a way to know/tell which fonts are used in a pdf file?

1 Answers1