Best Practices for Upload Issues

This article provides solutions to common problems with uploading, conversion, links, fonts, text, and layout when uploading your content to the Issuu platform.

Problems with Uploading

If you are unable to upload a content, please follow these steps:

• Use a different browser or computer. We suggest to use the latest version of Chrome or Firefox.
• Your network might be behind a proxy or firewall, which blocks certain requests. Try to disable proxy/firewall or use a different network.
• Use a different network. We suggest to use a different network by connecting your laptop with mobile hotspot.
• If you are using an antivirus software, try to disable it. Anti-viruses often act similar to proxies and might block or change certain network requests.

Problems with Conversion

If the conversion fails, one or more of your pages might be too complex (in other words, they contain too many vector objects). To troubleshoot, follow these steps:

• Identify these complex pages by observing which ones load slowly in a PDF reader
• Remove these pages and upload a test to see if conversion succeeds
• Simplify the design of the complex pages or flatten them to bitmap graphics

It is hard to see on the page if there are detailed vector graphics. It is normally the design program does when you add too many things on the page. You can try to generate your PDF as optimized for web or linear PDF. This can be achieved via the print dialog.

If you are using InDesign to create your content, download this Issuu Export Preset to ensure during the export process, your PDF is Issuu-ready.

Problems with Links

To ensure your links are working properly:

• Add long links before upload
• Links should have prefix with either www. or http(s)://
• Make sure links in the text are not separated by line breaks or placed directly next to non-link characters (add a blank space on each side of the link/email-address)
• If your links are displayed in the wrong place, export your document to view on the screen (not for print)
• If you are turning full pages into links e.g. for full-page ads, make sure the link area is smaller than the actual page. The best approach is to leave space for a margin around your link area

Problems with Fonts

Make sure your fonts are embedded in the document you upload by exporting with fonts.

Your document might look correct in a desktop PDF reader because the reader will automatically use the correct fonts available on the local computer. However, Issuu may need to substitute the missing fonts with different ones if you do not export the correct fonts. We will not be able to do font rendering or text extraction. Never use ligatures in your document. These would have rendering problems on Issuu. 

Font Rendering on Browsers 

All the other browsers (most notably: Firefox on Windows) respects their operating system’s settings for font smoothing.

Sometimes on Firefox browser, the font will convert to only Arial instead of the original font. In this case, please check your browser settings to avoid font issues. Please make sure to select Allow pages to choose their own fonts’ option under Settings -> Fonts. If this option is unchecked, then it will not allow for the original font to load in the browser. 

(Browser: Firefox, setting: ‘Allow pages to choose their own fonts’)

Problems with Text

If your page does not have crisp text, please ensure that:

• You do not have any images/graphics overlapping in the text. This includes semi- or full-transparent images/graphics. For example, putting text under the transparent part of an image of a circle, might cause trouble with how the text looks. To fix this, please re-arrange the layers in your document so the text is on top (even when the text is not visibly overlapped by anything).
• You do not export your text as outlines.
• If you are uploading a PDF document, text is selectable when you open the document in Adobe Reader. If the text is not selectable, it is an indication that it will not be rendered crisp on Issuu
• The text is inserted as text, and not as an image (for example as an advertisement). If it is inserted as an image, the text will not always be as crisp when zoomed in as in the original document
• You only include visible layers in the output PDF (see /hc/en-us/articles/5772711403291-Exporting-from-InDesign-to-Issuu-Ready-PDFs)

If you are still experiencing issues, turn secondary content (like advertisement) into images. If the problem we encountered while processing a page was in this secondary content, turning it into an image will allow the rest of the content to be rendered with crisp text.

Problem with Layout

If you have problems with text, images or another part of your layout, please see below steps:

• Try a different PDF version (e.g. v 1.3) or a different PDF printer
• Replace your vector graphics with bitmaps
• If your text is bleeding through, you are using an unsupported layout feature (e.g. soft masks). Please use a different layout feature or replace that page/item with bitmap graphics
• If images are not showing, they are probably inserted in the content using unsupported features (e.g. frames/forms), so try to simplify or flatten your layout

If Nothing Works

As a final attempt, try re-saving your PDF in Preview for Mac (or similar software on a PC), as it can sometimes remove unknown errors. If you want to upload a Word document or Powerpoint presentation, try exporting to PDF before uploading.