Terms like often appear in font substitution tables, especially when dealing with Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, or Acrobat. These are not traditional font names (like Arial or Times New Roman). Instead, they are placeholders or internal registry keys for CID (Character Identifier) fonts used primarily for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) character sets.

Introduction: What Are CID Fonts? In the world of professional printing, graphic design, and PDF engineering, few topics generate as much confusion as CID fonts . If you’ve ever opened a PDF from an Asian client or a legacy publishing system only to see blank squares or error messages like “Cannot find or create the font ‘F1’,” you’ve encountered the mysterious world of CID-keyed fonts.