Last reviewed: 20/9-2024.
If your font looks off in some place (often the figures) after you've converted to iXBRL it is most likely due to an issue rendering the data in HTML. If this is the case, the best solution will often be to apply a different font within the same font family used by your designer font .
Why the Font Looks Off
When your report is converted from PDF and Excel into iXBRL the figures are replaced with the technical amounts from the Excel template, HTML renders them as real figures which changes the font. Around 80% of the fonts used are replaced without any visual changes when the PDF is converted to XHTML and then merged with the XBRL layer. The last 20% are unicode fonts, which means that the font is stored as graphic elements. This means that they are not ideally suited for HTML use.
In most cases, our platform will be able to match the fonts without issue, but when it comes to unicode we typically see four different scenarios:
- Most often the font looks exactly like it did before the replacement;
- In rare cases the font changes a little after the conversion;
- In some even rarer cases, the font changes so much that it becomes noticeable;
- In the rarest of cases (which covers approximately 1-2%) the font simply does not work. It looks bad and it is barely legible. In these cases, there is no other option than changing the font in the PDF.
The Solution
Because the XBRL layer needs actual figures and not a reference to a graphical element somewhere in the code, there is no alternative to adapting the font of the figures.
So, if you experience issues with your font, the best solution is often for your marketing department to find another font which matches but doesn’t render as unicode.