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PDF export loses some fonts.


JoeF

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"A font is 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 double-byte fonts--a font format commonly used for Asian languages.

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, your version of Adobe Garamond?, not your service provider's version, can always be used by the service provider for viewing and printing.

When Acrobat cannot embed a font due to the font vendor's settings, and someone who opens or prints an Adobe PDF file 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. (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).

Acrobat can embed roman Type 1 and TrueType fonts in an Adobe PDF file to prevent font substitution if users don't have that font on their system or available to their printer. 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 not restricted from embedding.

Note: In some cases, TrueType fonts that have gone through a PostScript driver can no longer be searched, copied, cut, or pasted. To minimize this problem, use Acrobat on the same system on which the PostScript file was created, and make sure that the TrueType fonts used in the file are available on the system."

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Short answer: Don't use fonts that weren't installed as part of the OS.

Reason: most commercial font foundries (Adobe, Linotype, Bitstream, ITC, Monotype, etc.) restrict embedding of their fonts in PDFs because embedding copies the font's metrics to the PDF file, which can be extracted from the PDF, imported into practically any font editor, and used to create an exact duplicate of the original font file. (It really IS that easy.) So to permit embedding would be like to placing the fonts in the Public Domain. Since commercial font foundries derive a not insignificant portion of their revenue from licensing fees, permitting their fonts to be embedded in PDFs (or Postscript/EPS files, for that matter) could be tantamount to committing financial suicide.

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