Hollow boxes are displayed on screen
Hollow boxes are displayed on printed pages
Embedding TrueType fonts fail
Shaded or coloured logos print black
Poor quality of screen image (Font Smoothing)
Thin lines appearing on screen images

In general when using complex TrueType fonts, such as those containing logos, symbols and signatures, you should ensure that you are using the correct and most recent version of the driver for your printer. Printer drivers are frequently updated and the driver that is shipped with the printer is usually out of date by the time it reaches the customer. The latest version of a driver is usually available from the printer manufacturers website.

Hollow boxes are displayed on screen
If a hollow box (the non-glyph character) is displayed on screen it is either indicating that there is no character defined at the position selected or that the character has failed to display. If there is no character defined, then the display of a hollow box is the correct action. For instance, if a logo has been split into the characters 'abc', typing any other character will correctly display a hollow box indicating that it is not a valid character.

If, however, you have selected a valid character and a hollow box is still displayed then it is indicating that the selected character has failed to display on the screen. This is usually due to a driver issue and you should update all screen and printer drivers to the latest version. If this does not fix the problem of hollow boxes, please contact the support team.

Hollow boxes are displayed on printed pages
If a hollow box is displayed on screen and printout, please refer to the previous problem. If, however, the screen display is correct and the problem only occurs during printing, then the cause is usually attributed to the printer driver being used.

The cure for this problem is to obtain the latest version of the driver for your printer.

Embedding TrueType fonts fail
By default the TrueType fonts that Formula Solutions produce are created so that they are suitable for font embedding within a document. Click here to find out more about font embedding.

Not all applications support font embedding but applications such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint do support the feature. However, there have been some implementation issues with Font Embedding using Microsoft Word. These issues are application specific and are not related to the fonts. In general documents support the feature better than templates and wherever possible we recommend that within an organisation all systems have the font installed.

For documents that need to be sent outside of the organisation the font can be embedded within the document. Alternatively or for applications that do not support font embedding, the document could be distributed as a PDF. could be

Shaded or coloured logos print black
If a shaded or coloured TrueType logo displays correctly on screen, but prints as a solid (non shaded) black, then it suggests that the printer driver being used does not support shaded or coloured TrueType fonts. A simple test to confirm this is to shade or colour some text using a standard typeface, such as Arial or Times and then try printing. If black text is printed it will confirm that shaded or coloured TrueType fonts are not possible.

Usually the limitation is due to the printer driver and not the actual printer. Using a newer version of a printer driver may resolve this problem.

Poor quality of screen image (Font Smoothing)

When using a TrueType logo font which contains a complex logo or symbol, the screen display may appear to be of low quality. This is simply due to the fact that there is insufficient resolution available to display all the detail contained in the logo. The quality of the image can be improved, where possible, by either increasing the point size, zooming in on the image or by making use of a larger monitor.

Another method called Font Smoothing is available for Windows. Font Smoothing works by adding intermediate coloured pixels to the corners, curves and diagonals of characters in order to make them appear smoother and less jagged than they would otherwise.

Font smoothing can be accessed from the Display applet within Control Panel. The specific method of activating Font Smoothing varies for each operating system as listed below:

Windows 98 - Font Smoothing can be activated via the 'Effects' tab on the 'Display Properties' control panel. Select the 'Smooth edges of screen fonts' box to turn font smoothing on.

Windows NT 4 - Font Smoothing can be activated via the 'Plus!' tab on the 'Display Properties' control panel. Select the 'Smooth edges of screen fonts' box to turn font smoothing on.

Windows 2000/XP - Font Smoothing can be activated via the 'Effects' tab on the 'Display Properties' control panel. Select the 'Smooth edges of screen fonts' box to turn font smoothing on.

It is possible that this feature may introduce an additional side effect which is highlighted in the next section. If this happens then font smoothing can be switched off as required.

Thin lines appearing on screen images

Unlike traditional typefaces, it is not uncommon for TrueType fonts containing logos and symbols to have sections of the logo or symbol split over several character cells. When the relevant characters are typed the complete logo or symbol is then displayed.

If the complete logo or symbol is displayed on screen with thin lines showing at the areas of the join, this is simply a consequence of using Font Smoothing. Font Smoothing adds extra coloured pixels around the edge of a character which then shows as thin lines on the complete logo.

The only way to remedy this problem is to switch off Font Smoothing, which can be accessed using the 'Display Properties' control panel. However. the thin lines only appear on screen display and do not affect printed documents.