Wrong paths to fonts occur when you exchange models between different systems. An 'Embed' option would be useful

[FreeCAD-Bug-Importer]

Issue imported from https://tracker.freecad.org/view.php?id=3254

• Reporter: @luzpaz
• Date submitted: 11/11/2017
• FreeCAD version: 0.17
• Category: Feature
• Status: new
• Tags: #lowhangingfruit, Bountysource Potential, export, font, packaging

Original report text

If a font that is used in FC file is missing on a system that the file wasn't created on, FC throws errors as described in th forum thread

Workaround is copying the font file into a local directory on the other system, set the font in Preferences -> Draft -> TextAndDimensions and use relative paths.

Additional information

Original Forum thread: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?p=198905#p198775
Dedicated forum thread: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29504&p=241658#p241658
Please discuss in the above 'dedicated' forum thread

Other bug information

• Priority: normal
• Severity: minor
• Category: Feature
• Updated: 2/6/2021

Discussion from Mantis ticket

Comment by @yorikvanhavre 2019-01-18 21:54

Supposing this is about draft shapestrings...

Indeed the font file is needed to rebuild the correct geometry. Therefore it makes sense to have it embedded. It's a rather simle change (change App::PropertyFile with PropertyFileIncluded) however, if we have many shapestrings, each of them will embed a copy of the font file in the file.. That might be annoying. Not sure what would be a best path here...

---

Comment by normandc 2019-02-09 20:27

Guys, there's a potential license issue here. What if the font that was used has a license that prohibits the user from distributing it?

---

Comment by @luzpaz 2019-02-10 15:33

normandc IMO, this is the users responsiblity. Take Scribus for example, I don't recall Scribus having this functionality, and it is a FOSS Desktop Publishing program.

---

Comment by normandc 2019-02-10 17:16

Are you saying that Scribus doesn't offer the option to embed fonts in documents? If that's so, well, maybe this is related.

---

Comment by @luzpaz 2019-08-30 11:10

More related discussion on this topic at https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=38643&start=40#p330424

[WandererFan]

related issue #6707

[luzpaz]

Another example of this problem in this forum thread: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?p=648165#p648165 where a user has an issue and shares a file but a tester cannot open it due to missing font.

[spanner888]

forum workaround idea
"workaround: create a simple or transformed copy of the shapestring in part and delete the shapestring"

[luzpaz]

soft bump

[luzpaz]

Soft relationship to #9458

[luzpaz]

Keep an eye on #10335

Also upstream ticket https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-41759

[maxwxyz]

Remarks from the FreeCAD Day 2024 Complaint Session:
There is no default font.
There is no font selection other than a file open.
When you reference a font it is referenced by the path to that font on the specific computer. If you go to another computer it doesn't work.
It doesn't automatically use system fonts or system fonts just aren't available.