If your workbook uses non-standard fonts including unicode fonts such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai characters; it may not print or publish to PDF as expected. Specifically, unsupported fonts display as square boxes in the printed and PDF output. To resolve this issue, you can change the font to a supported font. To help you identify the unsupported fonts, you can make a change to your preferences file so that the unsupported fonts also show up as squares in Tableau Desktop.
Find a supported font
If you are using Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Thai characters, changing the default workbook font to Arial Unicode MS or another supported font will ensure the unicode characters are printed and published to PDF correctly.
Step 1
In Tableau Desktop, select Format > Font to open the Format window.
Step 2
In the Format window, select the Sheet tab. Under Default > Worksheet, select another font. Tableau recommends Arial Unicode MS if it is available.
Step 3
Repeat this formatting for each sheet that uses the unsupported fonts. You can copy and paste the formatting from one sheet to another by right-clicking the sheet tab along the bottom of the workbook and selecting Copy Formatting. Then switch to the new sheet, right-click the sheet tab, and select Paste Formatting.
Note: Check legends and filters to see if the fonts were changed. If they were not, go to Format and select the correct option Legends or Quick Filters, and select the font that you are using for the worksheets.
Change your preferences to identify unsupported fonts
If you are using Tableau Desktop 7.0 and earlier, you can make a change to your preferences file that will cause the unsupported fonts to display as squares in Tableau Desktop so you will not be surprised when you print or publish to PDF. Make this change if you are having trouble finding a supported font. After you make this change, follow the above steps until you find a font that displays correctly.
Step 1
In Windows Explorer, browse to My Documents\My Tableau Repository.
Step 2
Open the Preferences.tps file in a text editor such as Notepad. If have never modified this file before, you'll see tags.
Step 3
Copy the code shown below and paste it between the tags.
This code adds a section to contain custom preferences and sets the text.font.nofontfallback preference to true.
Step 4
Save and close the Preferences.tps file.