Can fonts in a PDF be converted to outlines with Acrobat Pro 9?

[kellyjaye1]

Acrobat Pro 9.....Sometimes I get a PDF that I will have to do some edits to.  Because I dont have some of the fonts used, I cant edit the file without losing the fonts used.  Is there a way to have Acrobat maybe resave itself with all the fonts converted to outlines so this wont be a problem along with any othe font errors I may get?

[Daniel Flavin]

I haven't looked at this in the Preflight and Fixup panel. I would look through there; but as it is frowned upon officially, I wouldn't gaurantee to find it.

Are you familiar with the InDesign convert fonts to outlines via transparency flattener technique (hack)?

[kellyjaye1]

I dont see anything in the preflight about it.  Also I frown on a lot of the "print ready" stuff clients send to me ;-).  I would think it would be a useful enough feature to see in there somewhere though.

I know about ID converting fonts to outlines, I do it now and then but this wasnt created by me and I dont have an ID file of it (Im guessing Publisher).  Not sure of the hack technique you mentioned though

[Daniel Flavin]

Converting fonts to outlines is frowned upon do to the loss of font hinting, loss of editability, and inherant fattening of the font.

In your seat, you have to do what has to be done. 

http://indesignsecrets.com/converting-text-to-outlines-the-right-way-updated.php

I may have read that this hack is not working in CS5 or 5.5

Place the pdf into InDesign. Create a box or small stroke on the page, in the case of non native ID elements (this pdf) the object needs to touch/overlap the pdf. Color the object, perhaps .1% black, apply transparency to it, as little as 1%. You effectivly have something unseeable, but will force the Transparency Flattener to kick in.

Create a new Transparency Flattener Setting, see my example,

Check the effect with the Flattener Panel, see my example

[JR Boulay · Accepted solution]

Place the pdf into InDesign...

Argl! Never do that, this is a total heresy!

==> Using Acrobat Pro:

- apply an invisible transparent object to all pages to force flattening (e.g. apply a little white square with an 1% opacity as a watermark in a corner),

- then go to the Transparency flattening : http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Acrobat/9.0/Professional/WS58a04a822e3e50102bd615109794195ff-7b87.w.html

and use a flattener preset that convert fonts to outlines.

[Daniel Flavin]

For those who might need this technique, how do you propose to add a transparent element?

[kellyjaye1]

Since he said to drop the PDF into Indesign, I would assume you wuold just have to draw a box somewhere on the ad and reduce the opacity to 0% or 1% and make a new PDF basically

[JR Boulay]

Since he said to drop the PDF into Indesign,

Noooooo…

[Daniel Flavin]

@JR_Boulay - While I can appreciate staying within one application, I'd appreciate your as to why you are so vehemently opposed to placing a pdf into InDesign. I have not tried your technique, but with a read through and some checks, it looks like a viable approach. I had considered that AA only allows the placement of non transparent formats, but found that transparency can then be applied via the Watermark Dialog. (The step of severly shrinking the watermark element also needs applying)

Properly exported, InDesign will preserve the intergrity of any element within pdf. It comes down to ones comfort level, IMO.

I'd rather avoid turning this into a flame contest, btw.

[kellyjaye1]

I place PDFs into ID all the time, ID gives more options when it comes to printing.  Like if I get an envelope made to exact size, there is a certain direction and placement I have to send it to our plate maker (left edge first to the edge of the plate).

Also with booklets, when they come in single pages, Acrobat does have a booklet printing mode but by default, it reduces the pages about 5% (for reasons I have yet to understand), so I place all the pages into ID pages and print the booklet at 100% along with creep and other settings.

Also sometimes may need to edit a PDF in a way that it cant be edited.  So I place it into ID, crop a certain part out and basically duplicate the PDF a dozen times in different ways to repiece it together without the part I might be trying to take out.  Kinda the equal to making several photocopies of a page, cutting it into pieces and gluing it back together but leaving certain items out that I dont want

[Daniel Flavin]

all normal stuff.

Are you saying that Acrobat reduces page areas usually or only when using the Create Booklet option?

[kellyjaye1]

In the Print dialog under Page Scaling where the options are "fit to page", "stretch to fit", etc...., there is a "Booklet Printing".  It really make things very easy to print your pages in a booklet format so all you have to do is fold it in half when done, but it ALWAYS reduces those pages by a few percent.  The only other way around it is to go into the printer settings and tell it to enlarge to about 105% or so.  But even that way gives strange effects, like things wont be centered properly.  I just find it a much less headache to use one of the included ID scripts to place all pages into ID and print my booklets that way

[Daniel Flavin]

I've imposed more than a few books in ID, have printed more than I can count, honestly never saw the Print Booklet in AA's diaolg until recently.

Having imposed numerous books with ID, I know prefer to let my RIP perform it; I never have to leave Acrobat. If you have a Fiery or Creo RIP, Command Workstation, check the Printers Advanced features, you may save some time.

I just used Acrobats booklet feature and ther was no scaling, fwiw

[kellyjaye1]

lol, everyone learns something everyday!

Our RIP is pretty outdated and Im  guessing it doesnt have a way of doing that.  I doubt they would want to deal with that either and just have it sent over exactly how it should print, kinda prefer that myself.  This is only when doing the offset printing also.  We do have 2 color copier/printers that we print a lot of books on that I do use Command Workstation with that have Fiery and I do use its own booklet maker with that, works great!  A BW printer we have does not though so I have to send through ID as a booklet as well.

You said printing from Acrobat Pro with the Booklet Printing option did NOT reduce the pages?  Have you tried just printing a single page on 8.5x11 and compare it to the size when printed as spreads on 11x17?

[Daniel Flavin]

I have never seen a page scale from Acrobat unless I invoked it from the Page Scaling. Perhaps Scaling was set prior to the Booklet Print and AA assumed you wanted both...

[JR Boulay]

Properly exported, InDesign will preserve the intergrity of any element within pdf. It comes down to ones comfort level, IMO.

No, even if your using "Export" instead of exporting via PostScript: http://www.prepressure.com/pdf/basics/refrying

😉

[Daniel Flavin]

The last Reply to that Blog is 18 months old, it it is all geared towards the problems of Postscript and Distiller. It is correct in content; refrying via ps and Distiller will strip out anything non essential to a traditional "make plates, mount plates, run offset" .

InDesigns Export engine is more than capable of maintaining pdf integrity. Your interpretation of the page is incorrect.

Note: The essence of this thread is to, in fact, convert properly embedded fonts to outlines within a pdf. There are ramifications to this conversion; loss of editabilty and font hinting. The intent of the thread is to allow means to alter a pdf, where fonts used are not locally installed on the station.

I knew this topic was going to turn this way..

[Peter Spier]

JR_Boulay wrote:

Properly exported, InDesign will preserve the intergrity of any element within pdf. It comes down to ones comfort level, IMO.

No, even if your using "Export" instead of exporting via PostScript: http://www.prepressure.com/pdf/basics/refrying

😉

Placing a PDF into InDesign and exporting is in no way refrying the PDF. ID internalizes the PDF content and uses it's own PDF library to create the new PDF file. There is no postscript, and no distiller involved.

[JR Boulay]

I'd rather avoid turning this into a flame contest, btw.

No flame here, the machine gun is just a silly joke. Sorry.

While I can appreciate staying within one application, I'd appreciate your as to why you are so vehemently opposed to placing a pdf into InDesign.

Logical needs to be logical: can you imagine someone converting an .indd file to PDF just for correcting typos?

And convert back the PDF to .indd to terminate the layout using InDesign ?

It's a non-sense.

Properly exported, InDesign will preserve the intergrity of any element within pdf. It comes down to ones comfort level, IMO.

Importing a PDF in a desktop publishing app to export it back in PDF always cause data loss, especially for fonts and profiles/color management.

Even using InDesign, and even using "Export" instead of Distiller.

[Peter Spier]

JR_Boulay wrote:

Properly exported, InDesign will preserve the intergrity of any element within pdf. It comes down to ones comfort level, IMO.

Importing a PDF in a desktop publishing app to export it back in PDF always cause data loss, especially for fonts and profiles/color management.

Even using InDesign, and even using "Export" instead of Distiller.

Sorry, while that might be the case with other layout applications that distill PDF, that is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE when importing PDF into InDesign and using InDesign's built-in PDF library to export. If the information is in the PDF to begin with, it's still there in ID, and it can be preserved or discarded (in the case of color profiles) depending on the settings. Any embedded fonts will be preserved, as fonts, unless the transparency flattening hack is used.

[JR Boulay]

that is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE when importing PDF into InDesign and using InDesign's built-in PDF library to export

May be, may be InDesign is the exception. I can't arguee furthermore.

In any case, this process is illogical, useless and time consuming since there is nothing that you can do into an imported PDF using InDesign that you cannot do using Acrobat…

(Unless if you want to convert a PDF to SWF with the nice page turning effect)

Also bear in mind that Acrobat can natively batch process (Droplets, Actions,…) any repetitive task, unlike InDesign.

PS:

I just retrieved the link to this document about refrying: http://www.prontaweb.com/pp-h.com/images/stories/pdfs/refrying.pdf

[Peter Spier]

I won't argue the merits of whether it is better to do the flattening from ID or from Acrobat. Many designers are more familiar with, and more comfortable working in,  InDesign than they are in Acrobat (and though it isn't relevant for  kellyjaye, there are plenty of designers without access to a full  version of Acrobat).

I haven't attempted to do an outline conversion on a PDF by flattening in ID, so I don't know for sure that it would work, but it seems like a reasonable suggestion worth trying if that suits your comfort level. I simply take exception to your saying that placing a PDF in ID and working with it would be somehow damaging to the PDF. If that were the case, it would be impossible to create most documents like magazines or newspapers where content is supplied by a diverse universe of contributors. I'm fairly sure you would agree that these publications are created everyday without any problems at all (and without having to outline any type set in a properly embedded font).

Personally, were I faced with the problem in the original post, I'd send the PDF back to the originator for corrections, but I understand that may not be possible. Given that fonts may be lost, I probably STILL would do something like either changing the font in Acrobat to one that is available and similar in appearance, or, better, attempt to open the PDF directly in ID using the pdf2id plugin and make the edits and font substitutions there where you have real control over the layout.

[JR Boulay]

(and though it isn't relevant for  kellyjaye, there are plenty of designers without access to a full  version of Acrobat).

So, in this case they should outline fonts when exporting the .indd document to PDF, not later by re-importing the PDF…

I simply take exception to your saying that placing a PDF in ID and working with it would be somehow damaging to the PDF. […]

I'm fairly sure you would agree that these publications are created everyday without any problems at all (and without having to outline any type set in a properly embedded font).

In a prepress intent this is OK, but importing/exporting a PDF into InDesign may cause many data loss (accessibility, bookmarks, hyperlinks, form fields, JavaScripts, multimedia objects, etc.).

That's what I meant.

[Peter Spier]

JR_Boulay wrote:

(and though it isn't relevant for  kellyjaye, there are plenty of designers without access to a full  version of Acrobat).

So, in this case they should outline fonts when exporting the .indd document to PDF, not later by re-importing the PDF…

But the point here was they didn't make or have access to the original .indd file...

I simply take exception to your saying that placing a PDF in ID and working with it would be somehow damaging to the PDF. […]

I'm fairly sure you would agree that these publications are created everyday without any problems at all (and without having to outline any type set in a properly embedded font).

In a prepress intent this is OK, but importing/exporting a PDF into InDesign may cause many data loss (accessibility, bookmarks, hyperlinks, form fields, JavaScripts, multimedia objects, etc.).

That's what I meant.

And how many of those things would be preserved in print? Your point would be valid, I suppose, for PDF destined to be viewed on screen.

[JR Boulay]

And how many of those things would be preserved in print? Your point would be valid, I suppose, for PDF destined to be viewed on screen.

This is why I wrote : "In a prepress intent this is OK".