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Anonymous

Answered

Convert fonts to outlines - when is absolutely needed?

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
August 4, 2016
8 replies
40771 views

Hello,

Do I need to convert the fonts to outlines when exporting to .pdf?

How about before packaging the finished job? (I might be wrong, but I think not since the fonts are packaged along with all the elements).

Thank you!

How to

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Correct answer Steve Werner

You should really never have to convert fonts to outlines when exporting to PDF.

Here's a posting I wrote almost 10 years ago which is still true today:

Outlining Fonts: Is It Necessary? - InDesignSecrets : InDesignSecrets

Occasionally, a printer may insist on having fonts outlined, even though it's really not necessary. This is the best method in the rare case when it's necessary:

Outlining Fonts, the 2016 Edition - InDesignSecrets : InDesignSecrets

Dov Isaacs

Legend

@Jay_Riether

There is absolutely nothing about “pro” fonts that should double the size of a PDF file assuming (1) the exact same content in both files and (2) you are subset embedding the font (which all Adobe products do when creating PDF). I'd love example(s) of such “before” and ”after” fonts in terms of non-“pro” and “pro” fonts. Note that all that “pro” label connotates is that the font's designer believes that the font has a larger glyph complement such as for multiple languages, symbols, etc. and more OpenType features. Unreferenced glyphs and most of the OpenType formatting features are not part of the font that gets embedded in a PDF file.

On the other hand, PDF files that have outlined text lose text searchability and text editability.

Something else must be occuring to bulk up the size of your PDF files. That's why providing some samples might help us solve your problem.

- Dov

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

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Test Screen Name

Legend

Why would you want to do that?

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

I don't know how old this kit is. But DOS hasn't existed since Windows 95 was released (21 years) and Illustrator for Windows started with verson 2.0, 29 years ago.

MW Design

Inspiring

Well, Windows was on top of DOS up until Windows ME (DOS + Windows). The NT lineage of Windows is not nor ever has been Windows layered on top of DOS (but does include the possibility to run MS-DOS applications, the command prompt, etc.).

skiddydoodah

Participating Frequently

I have come across in the past some prepress operators try to open pdf in Illustrator to plan / repurpose the pdf ready for their systems, doing this will require fonts to be supplied - or outlined, we stopped using these outdated printers.

Abambo

Community Expert

A correctly generated PDF should not need a touch up from any program except the RIP. I also ask my (internal) customers to seek alternatives to those printers.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

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Anonymous

Thank you all so much for your answers, you're truly an invaluable help. This online community is the best I have ever seen, and I've seen many...

Searching for new printer while making final touch ups to my first ever mini brochure

Abambo

Community Expert

There is absolutely no reason to create outline fonts for InDesign generated PDFs. This said, there are service providers asking for outlined fonts. In all of my recent cases, those were Asian print service providers. May be they are working with old technology.

I need to say that even in pre-pdf times, I mostly created EPS or PS files with embedded fonts and that was quite sufficient to get high quality prints.

If a print service partner in my region would ask me for vectorized fonts, I would cancel the job with them.

The only logical reason today to outline fonts is with logos.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

Dov Isaacs

Legend

Lucien SCHILLING wrote:
…The only logical reason today to outline fonts is with logos.

Even for logos, outlining text is not really necessary. Many companies, including Adobe, actually have a logo font. Glyphs from a logo font or even from a commercial font used in a logo can readily be embedded, subsetted, in PDF (or even EPS) and yield much higher quality than the “outlined” equivalent.

(Note to those of you who will then say, but the font doesn't allow embedding … The fact is that most fonts that don't permit embedding in PDF or EPS also don't allow outlining or rasterization as a workaround. Read the EULAs!!!)

Yes, outlining makes sense if you need to make a .WMF or .EMF version of a logo for use with Microsoft Office products that don't support the PDF imaging model.

In the general case, outlining makes sense only when you need artistic effects on glyphs that cannot be readily achieved through normal font text rendering transformations including obliquing, stretching either horizontally or vertically, rotation, etc. (Again, read your EULAs — some fonts don't allow for this, either!)

- Dov

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

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Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

It would be wonderful if designers did actually embed the font in the ai/pdf/eps files, but they don't and work on the old school way of outlining everything. This is probably due to misinformation being passed down from generation to generation of designer/prepress people.

In regards to the MS Office debacle, I have greater success just dropping the .ai file directly into MS Office. It turns out a lot sharper. MS seems to do some under the hood operation to convert it to an appropriate file format.

As for outlining fonts, I'm of the opinion that this only needs to be done if you're going to do some ornamental decoration or flourishes with the letters. There are other legitimate reasons (for example one time the RIP kept stripping out 1 letter in a sentence on a large format - outlined the fonts and it worked (didn't have time to investigate further)).

Let's just say - don't outline fonts 99% of the time - but you can do it if you need to do it for

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

I highly recommend you find a new printers.

Steve Werner

Correct answer

Community Expert

You should really never have to convert fonts to outlines when exporting to PDF.

Here's a posting I wrote almost 10 years ago which is still true today:

Outlining Fonts: Is It Necessary? - InDesignSecrets : InDesignSecrets

Occasionally, a printer may insist on having fonts outlined, even though it's really not necessary. This is the best method in the rare case when it's necessary:

Outlining Fonts, the 2016 Edition - InDesignSecrets : InDesignSecrets

A

Anonymous

Thank you Steve for the prompt answer. I am honored to meet you. As dealing with my first project in InDesign, I've read dozens of articles from your website and always found an answer to my problems.

Unfortunately the printer said they need the fonts converted to outlines, that's how they work and I was wondering if exported pdf will give them tall the font related information they need to print quality text without converting to outlines as they requested.

katariiina

Participant

Ah, I see people are using my name in vain again!

To be very explicit, if one must outline text, the only reliable place to do it is within Acrobat and with Acrobat Pro DC, you can do that using one of the provided Preflight Profiles, Convert Fonts to Outlines. You don't need to play tricks with flatteners and you don't need to pay extra for PitStop (nice software, but totally unnecessary for this task).

That having been said, even with old film imagesetters, the concept of outlining text is rubbish. It is one of those urban legends (that outlining text — converting text rendered with fonts to filled polygons — is “safer” than using text rendered with fonts) that keeps on being propagated from one poorly trained prepress operator to the next. All you accomplish is production of a PDF file that is exceptionally bloated in size, takes much, much longer to RIP, often prints with significantly lower quality, and is neither editable (Acrobat text touchup) or searchable. When I dare anyone propagating this “conversion to outlines” rubbish to show me examples where this is really necessary (assuming the PDF file with the embedded font displays correctly on-screen), the only response I get is either “I'll get back to you” or “but others told me that this is true.” You should reasonably assume that any so-called prepress professional that unconditionally demands “outlined text” for all print jobs likely has other significant gaps in their professional training as well.

- Dov

Hello!

Someone has designed logo, without converting the text to outlines. So, I have to convert the pdf to outlines.

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