To understand the error, you first need to understand the technology behind it. Character Identifier (CID) Fonts
: If you only need to view/print the document and don't need to edit the text, use the Transparency Flattener in tools like Adobe Acrobat or Illustrator to convert the text to shapes.
When creating a PDF, the software often embeds only the characters actually used in the document to save space. To differentiate these partial fonts, the PDF processor names them sequentially (F1, F2, etc.). cid font f1 f2 f3 f4
are standard, albeit sometimes problematic, placeholders for subsetted CID-keyed fonts in PDF documents. They are designed for character efficiency, particularly with complex or Asian character sets, but often cause issues when editing or printing.
7 0 obj % The actual font object for F1 << /Type /Font /Subtype /Type0 % CID-keyed font container /BaseFont /AdobeMingStd-Light /Encoding /Identity-H % Horizontal writing, direct CID mapping /DescendantFonts [8 0 R] % Points to the CIDFont dictionary /ToUnicode 9 0 R % For text extraction >> endobj To understand the error, you first need to
10 0 obj << /Type /Font /Subtype /Type0 /BaseFont /MS-Gothic-H /Encoding /Identity-H /DescendantFonts [8 0 R] /ToUnicode 11 0 R >> endobj
When you open a PDF and look at the font properties, you may see listings like "F1, F2, F3, F4" followed by a subset name (e.g., [Subset], CIDFontType2 ). To differentiate these partial fonts, the PDF processor
: These usually correspond to other variations like Italic , Bold Italic , or secondary typefaces used in the document. Technical Overview
When you see an error like CIDFont F1 missing or Cannot find or create the font 'F2' , it means your system or printer cannot decode the specific font shorthand assigned by the PDF generator. Common Causes of CID Font Errors