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OsakaWebbie
OsakaWebbie
Inspiring
September 12, 2025
Answered

Quick way to check for Type 3 or unembedded fonts?

  • September 12, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 885 views

After finishing a magazine that includes ads provided via PDF, the printshop kicked it back saying there were unembedded fonts. I finally figured out which ad was the offender, and its fonts are all "Type 3" and don't have "(Embedded)" or "(Embedded Subset)" in Document Properties. I solved it this time by exporting the ad as an image, but in the future I would like to check for this before sending the magazine to the printshop. Everything I can find on the web says that I can find out by using Preflight's "Embed missing fonts" profile, but running "Analyze" on that profile says "No problems found".  However, if I drill down in Overview/Fonts, under each of the multiple instances of "Type 3 font" (none with a name), "List of glyphs missing in embedded font" is a massive list (probably all the characters in the ad). If I run Analyze & Fix, the resulting new file has no change - none of the Type 3 fonts were magically embedded, and the analysis afterwards was the same: "No problems" but tons of unembedded glyphs. I tried a different profile "Fix potential font problems", but it had the same result.

So my question is, how can I easily check my final PDF (the whole magazine with multiple ads from different sources) to make sure there are no unembedded fonts? Scrolling through the massive list of fonts in Document Properties to look for something without the word "Embedded" is imprecise - I'm likely to miss something.

Correct answer Amal.

I already know that method, as I've said twice. I don't consider it "easy", because I can only see 3 or 4 fonts at a time as I scroll - there are 3-5 lines per font, the line spacing is wide, and the window's height is fixed. Plus, I'm looking for something that isn't there rather than something that is - the absence of a word is not much like a "red flag" (i.e. something that jumps out at me). If I assume Type 3 fonts are the only fonts with this issue (that is typically true, but I don't know if it's always), they are much easier to find in Preflight, where there is only one line per font and the list is sorted by type rather than name, so I can just scroll right to the bottom. Anyway, I guess you aren't aware of any easier ways, including scripts. I'm really surprised that Preflight doesn't do it, always saying there are no issues when there clearly are.

 

Related question: No matter what method I use to search, if I find problematic fonts, is there any way I can get Acrobat Pro to tell me what page a given font is used on? The opposite is not hard - in any of the font-related selections in Preflight, I can click on Overview/Pages/Page:[number] and see what fonts are on that page. But the reverse would be much more helpful.


Hi there,

You’re right — scrolling through that long font list in Acrobat can feel clunky, especially when you’re trying to confirm the absence of something rather than spot what’s there. Preflight is definitely more compact for Type 3 fonts, but Acrobat doesn’t currently have a built-in way to directly map a font to the specific pages where it’s used. Like you’ve seen, the workflow works the other way around (check a page, then see its fonts), not font to page.

Acrobat itself doesn’t ship with this feature, but JavaScript solutions may help, that can scan PDFs for font usage and report page numbers.

 

~Amal

1 reply

Amal.
Community Manager
Amal.Community Manager
Community Manager
September 12, 2025

Hi there 

 

We hope you are doing well. Thanks for reaching out. We are sorry for the trouble you are experiencing.

 

To check any un-embedded font the PDF document, please try the steps as below:

 

1. Check font embedding – Open the file in Acrobat, go to File > Properties > Fonts, and see if the fonts are listed as embedded. If not, they may not display correctly on systems without the font installed.

 

2. Try to embed the unembedded fonts: Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro > Go to Menu > Save as Other > Optimized PDF > Click on Fonts tab > Click on "Retain Font" if you see any unembedded font > Click OK and check.

 

3. Preflight check (Acrobat Pro) – Go to Tools > Print Production > Preflight > Click on the 'Wrench icon', Under Documents > Select 'Embed Fonts' > Click on Fix and see if that helps. (Screenshot attached for reference)

 

 

For more  information, please check the help page https://adobe.ly/41OHjFi;

 

~Amal

OsakaWebbie
OsakaWebbieAuthor
Inspiring
September 12, 2025

Amal, your answer is just a boilerplate response. I already said that I don't trust #1 as a method, because the list for a whole magazine could contain dozens or even hundreds of fonts, so I can't be confident that my eyes would be that accurate while scrolling through the long list. And I already tried #3 "Embed missing fonts" (I don't have one called just "Embed fonts", but the result would be the same) and described it thoroughly in my original post. As for #2, if Preflight can't embed them, Optimize can't either - from what I understand, Type 3 fonts are not true fonts but just graphics in a font wrapper (in the list, they don't even have names), so the installed fonts on my computer wouldn't help.

And most importantly, I'm not asking about how to fix the problem; I only want to know how to easily check to verify that all fonts in a document are embedded. If one of the ads in my magazine has unembedded fonts, someone would contact the advertiser and tell them to fix it themselves (or if there is no time to wait, I'll just rasterize the ad like I did this time). The important thing is that I want to verify that my document will be accepted by the printshop. I can easily check for spot colors (the other reason the printshop might reject the document), so I assumed there would similarly be a way to easily check for unembedded fonts.

Amal.
Community Manager
Amal.Community Manager
Community Manager
September 15, 2025

Hi there,

 

Thanks for clarifying your question. If your goal is only to verify whether all fonts are embedded, the quickest way in Acrobat Pro is:

 

  • Open your PDF in Acrobat Pro.
  • Go to File > Properties > Fonts tab.
  • This will list every font used in the document.
  • If a font says "(Embedded Subset)" or "(Embedded)", then it is embedded.
  • If you see a font without “Embedded” next to it, that’s your red flag.

This method is much easier than scrolling through Preflight or Optimize tools, especially for long documents like magazines.

 

Hope this will help

 

~Amal

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