See https://github.com/thinkle/gourmet/issues/729

gistfile1.diff

diff --git a/gourmet/plugins/import_export/pdf_plugin/pdf_exporter.py b/gourmet/plugins/import_export/pdf_plugin/pdf_exporter.py
index e9fb2c1..f77cc7c 100644
--- a/gourmet/plugins/import_export/pdf_plugin/pdf_exporter.py
+++ b/gourmet/plugins/import_export/pdf_plugin/pdf_exporter.py
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ from reportlab.lib.units import inch,mm
 import reportlab.platypus as platypus
 import reportlab.lib.pagesizes as pagesizes
 import reportlab.lib.styles as styles
+from reportlab.pdfbase import pdfmetrics
+from reportlab.pdfbase.ttfonts import TTFont
 from gettext import gettext as _
 from gettext import ngettext
 from gourmet import convert
@@ -227,6 +229,10 @@ class PdfWriter:
         self.doc.frame_width = frames[0].width
         self.doc.frame_height = frames[0].height
         self.styleSheet = styles.getSampleStyleSheet()
+
+        pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont('FreeSans', "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/freefont/FreeSans.ttf"))
+        self.styleSheet.add(styles.ParagraphStyle(name='MyStyle', fontName='FreeSans', fontSize=12, leading=12))
+
         perc_scale = float(base_font_size)/self.styleSheet['Normal'].fontSize
         if perc_scale!=1.0:
             self.scale_stylesheet(perc_scale)
@@ -327,7 +333,7 @@ class PdfWriter:
             xmltxt = '<para %s>%s</para>'%(attributes,txt)
         else:
             xmltxt = '<para>%s</para>'%txt
-        if not style: style = self.styleSheet['Normal']
+        if not style: style = self.styleSheet['MyStyle']
         try:
             if PASS_REPORTLAB_UNICODE:
                 return platypus.Paragraph(unicode(xmltxt),style)