Font Changed After Word to PDF — Fix

The text and layout stay — only the font changes

Converting a Word document to PDF happens on our server. So if a font the document uses is not on the server, the server draws it with a similar font it does have. Text does not disappear and tables do not collapse — only the look changes. When we actually converted a résumé made with NanumSquareRound, its three weights merged into one and the strokes came out angular.

The same applies even if the fonts are inside the document (saved with embedded fonts). The conversion does not use the fonts in the document; it uses the fonts installed on the server.

You are told which fonts will change before you press the button

When you press "Convert to PDF" or "Arrange pages", the dialog first shows which fonts will be replaced. Fonts the server has are not listed — that means they come out unchanged.

1. Fonts that come with Windows and Office, such as Gulim, Malgun Gothic and Batang, cannot be downloaded anywhere separately. They come out substituted.
2. For other fonts, links to Noonnu (noonnu.cc), Google Fonts Korean and Naver Hangeul Hangeul Areumdapge are shown alongside. Use them to check which font the original uses and get it yourself.
3. If the look must match the original exactly, exporting to PDF directly from the program that made the original (Word, etc.) is the reliable way.

Installing the font on your computer does not change the conversion result, because the conversion happens on the server, not on your computer.

Korean fonts the server has

We only include fonts that may be freely redistributed: the whole Nanum family (Nanum Gothic, Nanum Myeongjo, Nanum Barun Gothic, NanumSquare, NanumSquareRound, etc.), Source Han Sans and Source Han Serif (Noto Sans/Serif CJK), Pretendard, and KoPubWorld Dotum and Batang. Documents written in these fonts come out looking the same. For Latin text, Liberation, Carlito and Caladea are included.

Microsoft fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, Courier New and Calibri are not kept on the server, because we cannot place someone else’s paid fonts there. Instead they are replaced with Liberation and Carlito, which were made with exactly the same character widths, so only the letter shapes differ slightly and the line breaks and page breaks stay the same. Fonts with no width-matched substitute, such as Georgia, Verdana and Malgun Gothic, may shift the line breaks.

The KoPubWorld typefaces are distributed free of charge by the Korean Publishers Society and may only be redistributed under the same license terms. The full terms are on the Korean Publishers Society website (kopus.org). Pretendard and the Nanum and Source Han families are distributed under the SIL Open Font License (OFL).