PDF fonts change and some text disappears when converting to Word on macOS (works fine on Windows)

Hi everyone,

I’ve been facing a consistent issue on my Mac when working with PDFs that display correctly on Windows.

When I download certain PDFs — such as train tickets or bank documents — the fonts look completely different on macOS compared to Windows. For example:

• On Windows, the PDFs show clean sans-serif fonts (like Arial).
• On macOS, the same files open with a Times-like serif font, even though Arial and other Microsoft fonts are installed.
• Also, when I convert these PDFs to Word using Adobe Acrobat, some text elements (like transaction numbers or codes) disappear completely.

Here’s what I’ve already checked:

• Microsoft Office is installed on my Mac (so the fonts should be available).
• Arial and related fonts are manually installed and active in Font Book.
• Even when opened in Adobe Acrobat Reader, the fonts are replaced.
• When I use Print → Save as PDF, the saved version still has substituted fonts.
• On Windows, everything looks and converts perfectly — fonts stay the same and no text goes missing.

It seems like macOS’s Quartz PDF engine or PDFKit might be substituting fonts or dropping embedded text when saving or displaying PDFs.

Can anyone suggest how to make macOS handle PDFs the same way as Windows — preserving the original fonts and keeping all text visible when converting to Word?

Is there a way to force full font embedding or make Adobe Acrobat use the original fonts instead of macOS substitutions?