First identify where the lettering changes: when opening the PDF, placing it in Affinity, or viewing a new export. Then check font availability, import substitutions, and export settings. Each path has different controls and limitations.

This guide follows the current Affinity desktop Help Center’s Mac workflow. Its task is to help you isolate incorrect letter shapes, missing characters, or changed spacing and choose a supported way to preserve the intended appearance.

Where does the font first look wrong?

Keep the original PDF and your editable Affinity document unchanged while diagnosing the problem. Choose one affected page and record a specific symptom: for example, “the heading’s rounded letters change shape” or “the last word wraps onto another line.” A precise comparison is more useful than judging the entire page from memory.

Open the original PDF in a separate viewer, such as Preview or Acrobat, before opening it for editing in Affinity. Compare the same page at similar magnification. Then use this decision aid; these are diagnostic inferences, not automatic proof of a particular defect.

Observation What to investigate next
The original looks correct in a viewer but changes when opened in Affinity PDF import options and locally available fonts
Native Affinity text already looks wrong before export Missing fonts, substitutions, or unsupported characters
Native text looks correct, but the exported PDF changes Font embedding and other PDF export settings
A placed PDF looks different inside Affinity Passthrough status, its bitmap preview, and the final exported result
The same exported PDF differs between viewers A possible viewer-specific rendering difference; compare before changing the source

The distinction matters because Affinity documents different behaviors for opening and placing PDFs. Opening imports the PDF into a new Affinity document. Placing can retain a PDF through Passthrough, which is intended for exact reproduction. Those operations should be tested separately. See Importing PDF documents and Placing content.

Is the affected font actually embedded?

If you have Acrobat, open the affected PDF and choose File > Document Properties > Fonts on macOS. Record the font names exactly, including capitalization and hyphenation, and inspect the embedding information for the affected font. Repeat this on the new export if the problem appeared after exporting. Adobe documents this inspection path in Find font names in PDFs and Embedding fonts in PDFs overview.

Embedding includes font data for viewing or printing. It can include the entire font or a subset containing the characters used in the file. A subset is therefore not, by itself, evidence of a broken export. Adobe explains both forms in its font embedding overview.

Keep two questions separate: does the PDF contain font data, and does Affinity have the intended font available for editable text? The current Affinity import help documents replacement of fonts unavailable on your computer. It does not document a control for extracting or activating a PDF’s embedded fonts for editing. Selecting an embedding option during export does not resolve that earlier import decision. See Importing PDF documents.

What should you check when opening the PDF changes its text?

Reopen the untouched PDF through File > Open and inspect the PDF Options dialog before accepting it. Two controls deserve attention:

  • Favor editable text over fidelity explicitly prioritizes easier editing at the expense of accurate design reproduction. Leave it unchecked for an appearance-focused diagnostic import.
  • Replace missing fonts substitutes unavailable fonts with suggested or selected alternatives. Leave it unchecked if you want to address those missing fonts later through Font Manager.

Affinity specifically warns that accepting missing-font replacement during import prevents swapping those fonts later through Font Manager. These options are documented in Importing PDF documents.

Next, choose Document > Font Manager. Check the affected family and style, inspect its status and substitution columns, and select Locate to jump to text using it. Repeated use of Locate cycles through further instances. The current desktop menu path and controls are documented in Font Manager panel.

Interpret the status carefully. Missing means the font is unavailable on the device; Unsupported characters used identifies a character-coverage problem. Affinity’s temporary display substitution leaves the missing original assigned, so installing that original later allows Affinity to display it. Permanently replacing a font is an edit that persists when saved. See Managing fonts.

If you have the intended font file, install it on the Mac by double-clicking it in Finder and selecting Install. If an installed font displays incorrectly, select it in Font Book and choose File > Validate Selection, then review the reported details. Apple documents installation, validation, and duplicate handling in Install and validate fonts in Font Book on Mac.

Return to the affected text and compare the actual letter shapes, line endings, and spacing. An available font is a prerequisite for this editing path; the diagnostic is complete only when the troublesome text matches the intended appearance. If the original font cannot be supplied, treat any replacement as a deliberate layout change and inspect every affected occurrence.

How can you preserve a PDF page without editing its text?

When the task is to include an existing PDF page in a layout, test placement with Passthrough. Place the original PDF, select it, and inspect the context toolbar’s Passthrough setting. Affinity says it defaults to Passthrough for exact reproduction, with Interpret selected if that is not possible. While editing, Affinity displays a bitmap preview of the PDF, so inspect a fresh export before treating the canvas preview as the final result. See Placing content.

Preserve that route during the test. Editing an embedded PDF converts it to an Affinity document and loses PDF Passthrough. Changing a placed PDF’s layer visibility also automatically switches it to Interpret. These limitations are documented in Placing content.

Check the Preflight panel as well. Its PDF Passthrough checks can report rasterization caused by adjustments, effects, transparency, incompatible PDF versions or colors, and unsupported page boxes. The help also says that some issues, including missing fonts in a placed PDF, require access to the placed document’s source file. See Preflight.

Passthrough is useful when the incoming PDF already has the correct appearance and you need to retain it. If the original PDF is wrong in a separate viewer, return to its source document for correction; placement does not provide a documented font-repair operation.

Which export settings help isolate the problem?

Once native text looks correct, choose File > Export > Export, select a PDF preset, and enable Preview export when complete. Export only the affected page where the available Area and Pages controls permit it. Save under a new name. Affinity documents this sequence in Publishing PDF files.

Use PDF (for export) as a diagnostic starting point if it suits the task: its documented defaults include All fonts, font subsetting, and disabled advanced features. The digital presets and PDF (for print) also use All fonts, but other settings differ. Inspect the actual controls after selecting a preset; Affinity allows customization. See Compare PDF export presets.

Under Embed fonts, the documented choices are:

Choice Documented behavior
All Fonts Embeds fonts used in the document
Uncommon Fonts Leaves expected common fonts dependent on the viewing device
No Fonts Requires the viewing device to have the fonts; unavailable with PDF/X
Text as Curves Converts all text to curves

These are export behaviors, not repair commands. See Export Settings.

Make controlled comparisons rather than changing several settings together:

  1. Export with All Fonts and Subset fonts enabled.
  2. Export again with only Subset fonts disabled. This includes all glyphs rather than only those used.
  3. If stretched or stroked text is affected, compare with Allow advanced features disabled. Affinity warns that enabling it can produce incorrect rendering in another app; disabling it can rasterize or convert affected features to curves.
  4. Make a separate Text as Curves export if an appearance-only comparison is useful.

The option definitions and advanced-feature limitation are documented in Export Settings.

For an illustrative test, use a heading such as “Round shapes 012345” in the affected font and style. Keep its size, position, and formatting identical across exports. If the subset and full-font versions differ in the same viewer, you have narrowed the reproduction to that export choice. If only the curves version looks correct, you have identified a usable appearance-preserving alternative, but have not established the underlying cause.

Curves contain shapes rather than editable text. Keep the editable Affinity original, and check whether the delivered PDF still meets any requirement for text selection, copying, or searching. Converting an already substituted font to curves preserves the substituted appearance; it cannot reconstruct the intended lettering.

When is the diagnosis complete?

Run Check Now in the Preflight panel and inspect font and character findings. Do not assume checks ran merely because you opened a PDF: current Affinity help says PDF imports default to Never, which still allows a manual Check Now. Preflight results also depend on the active profile. See Preflight.

Finish by reopening the final PDF in the viewer that originally showed the problem. Check the exact affected text and nearby line breaks. Keep the smallest comparison that explains the difference: the original page, the relevant export settings, and the resulting PDFs. A successful outcome is either correctly rendered live text or a consciously chosen Passthrough or curves workflow whose limitations fit the document’s purpose.

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