Acrobat export to word (docx) not embedding fonts

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
July 6, 2020
1 reply
7127 views

I am a music book author. My books are written in indesign with the music imported into frames as PDF files. I generate the PDF files from indesign using the package option and selecting to embed all fonts into the PDF files. I know the PDFs are correct because I sell the PDFs all over the world to users on android, iphone, mac and pc who don't have the fonts on their systems.

However, when I open the file in acrobat pro dc and export to docx, the fonts are not embedded into the PDF frames. See picture for details. On top is how is the docx file, on the bottom is the PDF.

i'm using indesign 15.1.1 and acrobat pro 20.0 (both latest versions according to creativecloud desktop

junk.docx

junk.pdf

Edit and convert PDFs

This topic has been closed for replies.

gary_sc

Community Expert

Hi Jack,

It's not that the PDF is not exporting the fonts, it's that exporting into a Word document is not supposed to export the fonts. That would violate the copywrite of the fonts. The fonts are embeded into the PDF because that's the whole point of PDFs: digital printing. Imagine trying to print the documents from InDesign but not having the fonts show up on the printed page.

I have to admit that if you are converting the PDF to docx, why the Word version isn't picking up the music font from your computer I'm not all that sure of.

But just out of curiosity, why are you converting a PDF into Word? You have the original InDesign documents?

Oh, one other thought: is it possible that these fonts are ONLY supposed to work within InDesign (and in ID-created PDFs)?

J

jackzuckerphotographyAuthor

Participating Frequently

the reason I am converting from indesign to word is that I'm currently paying $60/month for the adobe products lease and just took a pay cut due to the Covid-19 economic downturn and can no longer justify spending that kind of dough on books that are in maintenance mode so I want to get them out of the proprietary format and into word. And no, the fonts have nothing to do with indesign. The fonts are part of finale music software and through the licensing agreement are able to be embedded in PDF files and other output generated by the tool.

And the point of PDFs is no longer just for printing. PDFs are used as a unversal distribution format for embedding, reviewing and commenting and in fact it makes no sense that if I do something with the following workflow, the embedded PDF graphics do not export the correct fonts into word: (note, this is not the primary one I'm using but by all rights, should work according to your explanation...)

Print my book
select print to pdf as the print driver (doesn't matter if I use the adobe or microsoft driver)
open acrobat dc pro
save to word document

I tried a test which was to take type some text in indesign and change the text to Finale's Maestro font. Then exported to PDF and opened that in acrobat, converted to word and the text comes in as times new roman. In this case, there is no embedding. Docx in word doesn't have the fonts embedded in it. They are there as references so there is NO reason it would not export the font name reference. I tried exporting to HTML and sure enough, the referenced font in HTML was times new roman.

Seems like a bug to me.

Dov Isaacs

Legend

I'll download and try to see what's going on a bit later today.

OK. I've downloaded your junk.pdf file and what you obtained by exporting .docx. I'll note that the PDF page you provided didn't provide the plain “exercise” text at the top of the page.

I also installed a copy of the Maestro and JazzText fonts. However, looking at the font files, it appears that they are restricted against embedding in a PDF file. The fact that Finale's PDF production ignores this inconvenient fact is not something I will speculate over.

I get very similar results to what you got when you exported to .docx.

The problem, very simply stated, is that the export function from Acrobat really is designed to handle simple text and simple artwork. This PDF file is anything but that with staffs of music drawn with line segments and a private use area glyphs from a music font. This really doesn't fit into what the export function was designed for. If you look at the resultant .docx file in Word, you see a whole raft of little frames with lines and a character or two of text, trying to make some sense of the input. It is possible that the exported .docx file doesn't show any use of the Maestro or JazzText fonts due to their “restricted embedding” status. In any case, I simply don't see Adobe trying to modify the .docx export to be able to handle this level of complexity.

I know you are trying to avoid paying to license InDesign, but you can individually license InDesign for a month at a time for approximately $32 / month. Cancel when done with project and reinstate if and when you need it again.

Otherwise, the steps I provided in my original response will in fact get you what you need.

Sorry that I cannot help you beyond that. 😒

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

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