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Participating Frequently
July 3, 2016
Question

Stop Acrobat from embedding fonts

  • July 3, 2016
  • 2 replies
  • 1131 views

I have a PDF with rich text fields that use base Acrobat fonts (Times New Roman). But for some reason every time I edit+save the form, Acrobat insists on embedding the fonts and bloating the file size. Is there a way to force Acrobat to not embed fonts?

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2 replies

Known Participant
January 8, 2024

Whatever Adobe says about fixing this problem is wrong. This is an ongoing problem as of today (01/08/2024). I am running the current version of CC. Every PDF I make contains embedded Microsoft fonts (Antigua, Times New Roman, Arial). Yes I am on a Windows platform but I am using Extensis font manager. None of these fonts exist in any of my docuents yet they always show up embedded in my PDFs. Why? This is causing confusion with my customers and service vendors. I cannot get rid of this annoying behavior.

try67
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 3, 2016

No. Fonts that are used in fields have to be fully embedded in the file, so the user can have access to them when they fill in the file.

Participating Frequently
July 3, 2016

Thanks for the response.

But I thought that the base fonts are universal and do not need to be embedded...

I know it's possible to remove embedded fonts after it's embedded. I just rather they don't get embedded in the first place.

In any case, the fonts are not important -- it's more important to keep the file simple and light. Is there no way to minimise the need for embedded fonts?

try67
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 3, 2016

That's true. If you use a "base font" (like Helvetica) then it doesn't need to be embedded. "Times New Roman" should be in that list as well, but maybe it's used for something else in your file? The problem is that once a font is embedded it's almost impossible to get rid of it, unfortunately.