Powerpoint fails to export fonts and transparency correctly

Question

Powerpoint fails to export fonts and transparency correctly

Anonymous

In the last couple of weeks, when I export slides from PowerPoint in Office365 (on MacOS Sonoma 14.6,1) to a PDF, the font does not export correctly (defaulting back to Calibri) despite being set to be embedded into the slides/file in Preferences and not being license-restricted (it is "Jost").

At the same time, upon exporting I am finding some elements of the document that have transparency are not rendering correctly and appear grey.

I should stress that this has been working absolutely fine for several years and so I know it isn't a fundamental issue/limitation. It is also worth mentioning that I have previously encountered this issue and fixed it before, but unfortunately I don't recall exactly what it took, and googling the issues keeps leading me down blind alleys which aren't useful.

I have verified that the issue persists on 2 other colleagues computers (all Macs but different software versions).

My best guess is that a recent update has broken something, but does anyone have any more specific guidance about how to fix this?

If this is a known issue, when can we expect a fix as this is important for our business?

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Hi Joe Healey,

Greetings. Thank you for posting the thread to our community.

I understand your concern, it seems when you use Jost font into your PowerPoint slide and the exported slide doesn’t show the Jost format correctly.

After my test that I’m using the latest version of PowerPoint 16.90, when you export the slide there are two options to choose, the first is called “Best for electronic distribution and accessibility (uses Microsoft online service)”, the other one is called “Best for printing”:

When you select the first option, the exported PDF will convert the Jost font into Calibri as Jost is the 3rd party font which doesn’t natively support for the Microsoft online service. When you select the second option, the Jost font will be correctly showed in the exported PDF file. Here is my test result as reference for you:

Select Best for electronic distribution and accessibility (uses Microsoft online service) option:

Select Best for printing option:

In that case, I suggest you can try to select the Best for printing option to check whether the issue persists or not.

If your scenario isn’t matched to my test result above, Please be free to contact and send feedback to me. I’m glad to help you further.

Hope you having a nice day.

Sincerely,

Harry | Microsoft Community Moderator

0 comments

5 additional answers

Answer 1

This has also become a massive problem with my work. It was a reliable export process for years, and now is almost non-functional. "Best For Printing" occasionally works, but it loses all of the links.

I'm using some very standard fonts, and "Best for electronic distribution" cannot handle most of them. I really hope the fix is happening soon.

Answer 2

Hi Harry,

Thank you for posting this workaround. Like the other replies, I have to note that exporting for electronic distribution used to preserve fonts. This random change on the part of Microsoft caused a lot of issues, expense, and delayed project delivery. Why did Microsoft feel the need to make such a HUGE change when things were working just fine before?

Thanks,

Niyati

Answer 3

Hi Harry - thanks for pointing this out. This does indeed appear to have fixed the issue in this case for me.

It seems peculiar as (as far as I can recall) I have always used the "Best for electronic distribution..." option and it has worked in the past, but regardless, that has saved me a lot of pain!

Answer 4

Anonymous

@Harry.Liu. the issue persist on issue persists regarding of Mac OS version, all using the latest PowerPoint 16.91 and PowerPoint 16.90Is this a known issue that would be fix at some point?

Thanks

0 comments