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framstudiotest
Known Participant
September 24, 2025
Answered

Font not allowed... again

  • September 24, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 335 views

I'm almost exclusively using fonts from Adobe Fonts and installing them on my Adobe Enterprise account. The Adobe Fonts page says "The full Adobe Fonts library is cleared for both personal and commercial use." It also specifically mentions PDFs for print, which is what I'm making; books.

 

And still on maybe half of the fonts I try I get "Font not allowed" in Preflight. I'm exporting for offset printing only, not ebooks or interactive PDFs, and I'm assuming that the printing house will not try to hack the PDF and steal fonts.

 

I sort of suspect that that the warning message is incorrect and doesn't apply to me but I'm not certain and I cannot risk that a run of thousands of books have font problems.

 

Earlier I have simply outlined these fonts as they were always "arty" fonts that are only used a couple of places in headlines. But this time I have over 240 instances of fonts not being allowed, while being logged into my Adobe account and working with Adobe fonts.

 

What do I do? Simply edit my preflight preferences and hide the warnings? Or do I need to change something?

Correct answer Eugene Tyson

Says almost the same as in your screenshot: Problem: Fonts not allowed: Protected.

Same suggested fix to replace the fonts.


When you export the PDF go to the file properties and check they are embedded. 

 

Once embedded then it shouldn't be an issue. 

 

CMD D or CTRL D will open the properties then go to the fonts tab.

Once it says Embedded or Embedded (Subset) you should be fine. 

1 reply

BobLevine
Community Expert
BobLevineCommunity Expert
Community Expert
September 24, 2025

Could be a buggy error. What font? When/where are you seeing this? 

 

If you ignore it and export the PDF, is there an issue with Acrobat's pre-flight?

F
framstudiotestAuthor
Known Participant
September 24, 2025

It happens with most fonts that I have downloaded from the Adobe Fonts page through Creative Cloud. In other words fonts that I guess didn't come with the computer. In this case nearly all typewriter fonts I have found on the page, such as Typeka, Sunflower, P22 Typewriter, Secret Service Typewriter, JohnDoe, etc.

 

This is using the Preflight profile I have chosen in InDesign. Which is all the preflight I do. As you can tell I don't know a lot of technical things about the printing. The PDF files look correct in Acrobat when exported. But I worry that they will be stopped in printing overseas and that there will be great expenses.

 

 

 

BobLevine
Community Expert
BobLevineCommunity Expert
Community Expert
September 24, 2025

Ah. I think I know the issue but please check the conditions in your preflight profile. Does it exclude Opentype fonts or only allow Truetype?

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