How do I open a PDF processed by make.com? It gives an error about a missing font

Questions
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1

:bullseye: What is your goal?

When I open PDF files on the computer after they pass through the Microsoft 365 Email (Outlook) List Attachments module, are transferred via HTTP / webhook to another scenario, and then uploaded with OneDrive – Upload a File, the following happens:

After the OneDrive – Upload a File step, I download the PDF to the computer, and Adobe Acrobat shows an error saying that a required font is missing.

I can’t find this exact font online, and similar fonts don’t help.

So the questions are:

  1. how can such a PDF be opened normally on a computer after this processing chain?
  2. or how to process a PDF file less deeply in Mace.com so that additional fonts aren’t needed later?

:thinking: What is the problem & what have you tried?

I can’t find this exact font online, and similar fonts don’t help.

:clipboard: Error messages or input/output bundles

‘AAAAAC+TimesNewRomanPS-BoldItalicMT’. Some Cannot extract the embedded font characters may not display or print correctly.

:link: Create public scenario page

:camera_with_flash: Screenshots (scenario flow, module settings, errors)

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1 Like
3

Hey there,

can you open the same exact file directly from the email? And what are the scenarios doing with it? Is it getting processed in some way?

4

Yes, I can initially open it in email.

The scenario processing works like this: first, the Microsoft 365 Email (Outlook) List attachment, module extracts the PDF file from the email. Then, using the, JSON Create JSON, and, HTTP make a request, module passing it to another scenario for, Webhooks custom webhook. Then, the OneDrive Upload a file, module uploads it to the file-sharing service. The files open in email, but not in the file-sharing service.

5

PDF files are invoices, and the PDF.co service extracts data from them, saving it to Excel. It also checks for existing folders in One Drive and creates them for subsequent storage of PDF files.

6

OK but why the second scenario? Cant you upload it directly? And why convert it to a JSON in the middle of it?

You will need to start checking the file step by step and see it after each module to see which one broke it. But I will take a wild guess and say something got lost in the conversion in the middle and one of the font names got broken.

7

I created a second scenario and moved the module for uploading to OneDrive and entering parsed data into Excel into it. In the first scenario, I implemented validation and automatic folder creation in OneDrive, resulting in four branches. To avoid duplicating modules, I transferred the data to the second scenario for unified processing.

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8

To pass it to the second script, I converted it to JSON. I’ll also try duplicating the modules from the second script into the first script and see what happens.

Did you have any issues with fonts when uploading the PDF to OneDrive and then viewing it?

9

My best guess is that when you convert the binary data to a JSON, a special character inside the font name is getting broken, then the program doesn’t recognize the font and cant open it.

Try uploading the file in the master scenario and not transforming it to a JSON to see if it will work that way.

On a side note - I see you have filters after the routers, so only one route is getting executed here right? There is no problem to use duplicate modules in this case. What you can also do is place a set variable module at the end of each route and store the folder ID there. Then add a new third route without a filter, put a get variable module to retrieve the folder ID and do the upload there.

2 Likes
10

Thanks for your reply. Okay, I’ll give it a try. It’ll take a few days. I’ll let you know if it worked.

Yes, only one route is running at a time.

11

Your best guess was correct. The problem was solved by moving the file upload to the file-sharing service from the second scenario to the first scenario. I stopped using the JSON creation module, and now the files open with the correct font after being stored on the file-sharing service.

Thank you very much, your advice is very valuable to us! :slight_smile:

12

Sounds like Make.com might be altering the file or stripping embedded fonts during transfer. I’d try passing the PDF as a binary file without any parsing or conversion steps. If that works, the issue is in one of the modules modifying the document.