Why did question marks appear in my quote PDF instead of some symbols?
Because the PDF uses an embedded font that covers Arabic and Latin, and any character that font has no shape for, such as an emoji, is replaced with ‘?’. The tool does not hide this: after it builds the file, a message tells you how many characters were replaced. Remove them from your descriptions and notes, or write their meaning in words, and create the file again.
Where these characters come from
Mostly from copy and paste. You copy a product name from an Instagram post or a WhatsApp message, such as ‘Royal oud perfume ✨ 50 ml’, and the sparkle comes with it. It looks fine on your screen because your device has an emoji font, but a PDF does not use your device's fonts; it uses the one embedded in it, and that font has no emoji.
Cases that may surprise you
- One symbol can become two marks: the heart ❤️ is really two characters, the heart plus a hidden style selector, so it prints as two question marks in a row.
- A question mark where you saw nothing: some text copied from social platforms carries a zero-width space you cannot see. The font does not cover it, so a ‘?’ appears in an apparently empty spot.
- Not every symbol is refused: the tick ✓, the bullet •, the arrow →, the €, £, ° and × signs and the riyal sign ﷼ are all in the font. The ★, ⭐, ✔ and ✅ symbols are not.
How to fix it
- After pressing ‘Create PDF’, read the message under the download button. If it says 3 characters were replaced, you are looking for three.
- Check the line descriptions first, then both parties' names and addresses, then the notes. All of them go through the same font.
- Delete the emoji or replace it with a word: ‘new’ instead of 🔥, ‘featured’ instead of ⭐.
- If nothing visible is left and the message still appears, the cause is usually a hidden character. Paste the text into the Whitespace cleaner, turn on ‘Remove zero-width separators (ZWSP, WJ, BOM)’, and copy the result back into its field.
- Create the file again and make sure the message is gone before you download.
Is it better to write descriptions from scratch?
Yes, if you can. Store captions on Instagram or Salla are written to catch the eye, while a quote is a business document that gets read, printed and possibly filed in the client's procurement records. ‘Royal oud perfume, 50 ml, glass bottle’ is clearer than a copy full of symbols. And the description limit is 200 characters, so symbols use up space for nothing.
Start your quote in the Quotation generator with descriptions written in words, and the file will come out clean on the first try.
Common questions
Does a question mark mean the file is damaged?
No, the file is fine. Only the character the font does not cover has been swapped for ‘?’.
Can I choose another font that supports emoji?
No. The tool always uses IBM Plex Sans Arabic, and it cannot be changed.
Are Arabic diacritics affected?
Diacritics do not turn into ‘?’, but their position may sit slightly off in the file, so it is better to leave them out of descriptions.