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New Participant
August 15, 2015
Answered

How do i enbed fonts in acrobat dc pro?

  • August 15, 2015
  • 4 replies
  • 70058 views

That's it. Just that question. I need to embed fonts for print books ... Thanks

Correct answer Dov Isaacs

The correct place in your workflow to embed fonts is when you create the PDF file, not afterwards in Acrobat. You didn't indicate from what application you are creating the PDF file from (i.e., InDesign, Word, etc.), but the settings used in creating the PDF file determine whether the fonts get embedded or not.

 

Important Hint! The so-called “standard” settings are lousy for producing proper PDF. If you are using InDesign, export PDF with PDF/X-4 settings and all fonts will be embedded (unless the font itself prohibits embedding). Likewise, if you are using Microsoft Word, “save as Adobe PDF” (not Microsoft's “save as PDF”) choosing the High Quality Print settings and all fonts will be embedded (again, unless the font itself prohibits embedding).

 

If you no longer have access to the original document and all you have is the PDF file with fonts that aren't embedded, Acrobat does provide a fixup for embedding fonts via the Preflight feature. There is a fixup for embedding missing fonts. Note that this requires that (1) the missing fonts are actually installed on your system and (2) the fonts themselves do not prohibit embedding in a PDF file.

 

Further note that if you have a PDF file with fonts that aren't embedded, there might be other “issues” that would make it difficult to send such a file for commercial printing, such as rich blacks, imagery that is not of high enough resolution, etc.

 

4 replies

Brainiac
October 26, 2017

Things have changed in preflight in the 2 years since the reply was written. Where it says "Essentials" you can pull down a list of groups. I think there's an Acrobat 2015 group or some such. Not clear exactly how Adobe reorganised it but poke around... Expect re-printing to cause significant damage to files.

New Participant
June 28, 2017

This does not answer the question "How do you embed a font in a pdf?"

Dov Isaacs
Brainiac
June 28, 2017

Of course it does! Choose the proper options when you create a PDF file!

 

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
New Participant
October 5, 2017

Sadly, not all common apps give us the 'proper options' to embed fonts when creating a PDF.

Inexplicably, Microsoft Word for Mac (current version with Office 365, version 15) is among that list.

Dov Isaacs
Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
Brainiac
August 16, 2015

The correct place in your workflow to embed fonts is when you create the PDF file, not afterwards in Acrobat. You didn't indicate from what application you are creating the PDF file from (i.e., InDesign, Word, etc.), but the settings used in creating the PDF file determine whether the fonts get embedded or not.

 

Important Hint! The so-called “standard” settings are lousy for producing proper PDF. If you are using InDesign, export PDF with PDF/X-4 settings and all fonts will be embedded (unless the font itself prohibits embedding). Likewise, if you are using Microsoft Word, “save as Adobe PDF” (not Microsoft's “save as PDF”) choosing the High Quality Print settings and all fonts will be embedded (again, unless the font itself prohibits embedding).

 

If you no longer have access to the original document and all you have is the PDF file with fonts that aren't embedded, Acrobat does provide a fixup for embedding fonts via the Preflight feature. There is a fixup for embedding missing fonts. Note that this requires that (1) the missing fonts are actually installed on your system and (2) the fonts themselves do not prohibit embedding in a PDF file.

 

Further note that if you have a PDF file with fonts that aren't embedded, there might be other “issues” that would make it difficult to send such a file for commercial printing, such as rich blacks, imagery that is not of high enough resolution, etc.

 

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
August 20, 2015

I added page numbers in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and when I rotate the text boxes containing the headers, they disappear.  I found that the supposed answer to rotated fields disappearing was that the fonts were not embedded.  Why wouldn't font on headers added in Adobe be embedded? Is there something I can do to embed them?  Is there perhaps a different problem causing the text boxes to disappear? Thanks.

August 15, 2015

Hi ,

You could refer the following document and see how to embed fonts in Acrobat.

Acrobat Help | PDF fonts

In case you need some other fonts other than what are available ,you could download that from the web.

Regards

Sukrit Dhingra

Dov Isaacs
Brainiac
August 16, 2015

Sukrit Dhingra wrote:

 

...In case you need some other fonts other than what are available ,you could download that from the web...

 

 

You cannot assume that fonts that are not available on your system can be downloaded from the web. If the fonts in question are commercial fonts, you need to acquire valid licenses for same, whether or not the font vendor make such licenses and subsequent download available from the internet.

 

You need to be very careful. There are many websites offering “free” versions of commercial fonts but in fact are offering pirated copies of same.

 

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