How can I find text in my PDF that’s in a particular font?

Report · Mar 31, 2024

Long explanation: I want to publish my PDF with IngramSpark, an online publisher. When I send it my document, it tells me all fonts must be embedded. In particular, my Times New Roman is not an embedded font., so I edited my PDF (in Acrobat Pro) and changed all the text boxes I could find from Times New Roman to Adobe Garamond Pro.

But now when I upload the revised PDF, IngramSpark tells me I still have Times New Roman fonts that are not embedded, yet when I go through the document again in Acrobat Pro, I can’t find any. Is there any way in Acrobat Pro to find where Times New Roman is still hanging out?

Report · Mar 31, 2024

Hi @defaulth0gkyg308vg9 ,

I am not an expert or very profficient with pre-press requirements but editing a PDF in Acrobat and changing all the text boxes is not the correct method, I'm afraid.

You can, however, review which Font types were embedded in a PDF with Acrobat => open the Document Properties => Fonts tab:

Based off of that information you can decide what was missing and modify the Acrobat PDF conversion settings manually to suit the needs of IngramSpark. This has to be performed before a PDF is created, not after.

Meanwhile, the first consideration is to keep track of which program produced the source document (i.e Microsoft Word)
Which method was used to export the original document to a PDF file
If the operating system or a Acrobat-dependent application has outdated Fonts, for example (see screenshot):

Methods used to export a source file to a PDF file and additional considerations:

Using the Save As PDF method from a program other than Adobe Acrobat (such as in macOS or Linux; some PDF creation features are present in Microsoft Windows only )
Scanning documents to PDF
Converting Web Pages to PDF
Converting email messages and email attachments to Adobe PDF
Postscripting a PDF file
Printing to PDF using the Adobe PDF Converter (virtual printer driver, also known as Adobe PDF or referred as the Adobe PDF printer)
Using Microsoft Print to PDF virtual printer
Opening the source text file directly in Acrobat
Employing the Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Add-in (also referred to as the Adobe PDFMaker) directly from a Microsoft Office application Acrobat toolbar
Using the Acrobat PDF extension in supported web browsers such as, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, or Chromium-based web browsers such as the New Microsoft Edge web browser

In all instances listed above where Acrobat is used (with the exception of Save As when using a program other than Acrobat or printing to PDF using the Microsoft Print to PDF virtual printer), the Acrobat Distiller program seems to be tightly integrated whenever files are exported to or imported to a PDF.

As I mentioned earlier, it requires manual configurations to avoid certain font types from being subsistuted with equivalents ( or generic) font types in the event that Acrobat can't find them during the PDF creation process.

For this reason alone, embedding fonts in a PDF document with Acrobat may appear as a steep learning curve to some users, but it is very straight forward.

Below I linked for you the some of the Adobe Help Center references to get familiarized with what needs to be configured when using the Adobe PDF converter, the Acrobat Distiller or the Acrobat PDF Printer and ::

Now, that I got all that verbage out of the way see my next slides; they illustrates how to confugure the PDF converter to embedd all font types.

Once this is done produce a new PDF from the source document file and see if Ithis time IngramSpark kicks it back.

Report · Mar 31, 2024

Thank you! That's very helpful.
I'll take the (different) approach you suggest.

Report · Mar 31, 2024

You're very welcome.