The next time you see a PDF error complaining about F1 , you will know exactly what it means: The document is looking for its first Character Identifier font, and it cannot find the glyph outlines required to print or display the text.
cid font f1 f2 f3 f4 is a generic internal label , not a real font. If you see it in a PDF error or font list, you need to locate the underlying base font (e.g., via the /BaseFont entry) to know what you're really dealing with. cid font f1 f2 f3 f4
and F3 are more specialized, often functioning as subsidiary or composite dictionaries . In complex scripts, a single final glyph may be composed of multiple parts. For example, a CJK character might consist of a radical and a phonetic component, or a vertical writing variant may require rotated or shifted glyphs. F2 commonly stores composite character data —instructions on how to combine base glyphs (referenced via their CIDs in F1) to form a new, higher-level character. F3, in turn, might hold variation or stylistic alternates , such as different glyph forms for the same CID (e.g., traditional vs. simplified, or printing vs. handwriting style). By organizing this data across F2 and F3, the font achieves modularity and avoids redundant storage of similar glyph parts. The next time you see a PDF error