Fonts not honored or embedded in AIX export

[LaineyLe_Blanc1]

We are having trouble with fonts embedding into .aix files that are exported from ArcPro and opened in Adobe Illustrator. We use Pro to make geologic maps and our symbology relies primarily on fonts. These fonts are the FGDC GeoSymbols which are 5 individual fonts that build point, line, and polygon symbols. We export the geologic map layout as an .aix file to finish the plate in Illustrator with the "Embed fonts" checked. Upon opening the Illustrator file, we are prompted that the document uses fonts that are currently not available on your computer.

We go through and resolve the missing fonts and change them to the matching fonts, but that does not fix the fonts and symbology display. Some symbols will display correctly, the majority of them will not. I double check and select a symbol that uses the same font character and it is using the correct character, but no symbol appears in the map (been an issue recently/primarily with foliation symbols).

This also happens for symbols along a line, it will display a "?" or other wing-dings. This may not be an Esri issue, but it is frustrating! I've read another community post that solved font display issues by  unchecking "Embed fonts" upon export (https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-maps-for-adobe-creative-cloud-questions/font-bug-opening-aix-in...). We tried this and it did fix some of the symbol/font issues, although not all of them. Doesn't seem like much of a solution to export the file with the w/ Embed fonts turned off, especially when embedding fonts is supposed to help ensure the fonts display correctly. And, turning it off semi-fixes the very task that it's supposed to do! I've uinstalled and reinstalled the fonts which did not fix the problem either. I checked the stylx file to ensure that the correct font is being referenced in the symbol properties. Had the same issue in .aix and after saving as an .ai file too. Any help would be appreciated and would like to hear if anyone else has had this problem.

I've had this problem with exporting .ai files from ArcMap and were able to fix those broken fonts in Illustrator, but with the .aix format we have not been able to correct these fonts the same way we could from .ai files exported from ArcMap. 

Versions we're running-

ArcGIS Pro v. 3.1.3

ArcGIS Maps for Adobe Creative Cloud v. 3.5

Adobe Illustrator v. 27.8.1 (64-bit) 

[Anna_Breton]

Hi @LaineyLe_Blanc1,

Thank you for sharing so many details on the issue you're seeing. It's very helpful. Is there any chance you can also share your AIX file with us ...or one that is displaying the same font issue? This would help us take a deeper look at your specific case.

Best, 

Anna

[PhilMiller]

We have the same issue: it seems to be a font decoration marker symbol along a curved line. It exports the font decoration, but the bounding box is too small for the font to display "through" the "opening of the text bounding box along a line.

[LaineyLe_Blanc1]

Same here, realized that I couldn't see some marker symbols because the fonts are 'too big' to display in the text frame, with no easy solution to correct in Illustrator.   

[CaitlinBernier1 · Accepted solution]

The working solution right now appears to be to check the box that says "Convert character marker symbols to polygon" when exporting to AIX.  When I did this, my FGDCGeoSym05 ball and bar fault symbols showed up on the map.  Thank you Phil for the help!

[Anna_Breton]

Hi All, 

The mention above to check the convert to polygon option in the Pro export pane is the best way to resolve this issue. Your text should appear if you do this, but if you get small red + symbols next to your text (like this, ) this means your text is simply hidden and you have to manually lengthen your text containers to make everything appear correctly.  

Thanks for all the reply's and hope this helps!

[LaineyLe_Blanc1]

From what I've seen in Illustrator, expanding the text containers manually may work for plain-language text, but expanding the containers on font based symbols will move the symbol for point and line markers. So you lose the location's accuracy for the data point.