Fonts, Font embedding and substitution, Accessing and embedding fonts using distiller – Adobe Acrobat 9 PRO Extended User Manual
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USING ACROBAT 9 PRO EXTENDED
Creating PDFs
Last updated 9/30/2011
Fonts
Font embedding and substitution
A font can be embedded only if it contains a setting by the font vendor that permits it to be embedded. Embedding
prevents font substitution when readers view or print the file, and ensures that readers see the text in its original font.
Embedding increases file size only slightly, unless the document uses CID fonts. a font format commonly used for
Asian languages. You can embed or substitute fonts in Acrobat or when you export an InDesign document to PDF.
You can embed the entire font, or just a subset of the characters used in the file. Subsetting ensures that your fonts and
font metrics are used at print time by creating a custom font name. That way, for example, your version of Adobe
Garamond®, not your service provider’s version, can always be used by the service provider for viewing and printing.
Type 1 and TrueType fonts can be embedded if they are included in the PostScript file, or are available in one of the
font locations that Distiller monitors and are not restricted from embedding.
When a font cannot be embedded because of the font vendor’s settings, and someone who opens or prints a PDF does
not have access to the original font, a Multiple Master typeface is temporarily substituted: AdobeSerifMM for a missing
serif font, and AdobeSansMM for a missing sans serif font.
The Multiple Master typeface can stretch or condense to fit, to ensure that line and page breaks in the original
document are maintained. The substitution cannot always match the shape of the original characters, however,
especially if the characters are unconventional ones, such as script typefaces.
Note: For Asian text, Acrobat uses fonts from the installed Asian language kit or from similar fonts on the user’s system.
Fonts from some languages or with unknown encodings cannot be substituted; in these cases, the text appears as bullets
in the file.
If characters are unconventional (left), the substitution font will not match (right).
If you have difficulty copying and pasting text from a PDF, first check if the problem font is embedded (File >
Properties > Font tab). For an embedded font, try changing the point where the font is embedded, rather than sending
it inside the PostScript file. Distill the PDF without embedding that font. Then open the PDF in Acrobat and embed the
font using the Preflight fixup. For more information, see the forum post at
.
Accessing and embedding fonts using Distiller
When converting a PostScript file to PDF, Distiller needs access to the file’s fonts to insert the appropriate information
in the PDF. Distiller first searches the PostScript file for Type 1, TrueType, and OpenType fonts. If the font isn’t
embedded in the PostScript file, Distiller searches additional font folders. Distiller searches the following font folders
in Windows:
•
/Resource/Font in the Acrobat folder
•
/Windows/Fonts
Distiller searches the following font folders in Mac OS:
•
/Resource/Font in the Acrobat folder