How to create Outlines in indesign?

[martin_kohler]

Hello

I have a text with personal informations and i will creat outlines. But how can i creat them?

[cmgap]

You've posted in the Lounge which is a non-technical support area. Moving to InDesign forum.

[cmgap · Accepted solution]

Give this a try:

1. Use the Selection tool to select a text frame, or use the Type tool to select one or more characters.
2. Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you choose Type > Create Outlines.

Compound paths and shapes in InDesign - Adobe Support

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/compound-paths-shapes.html

[Derek Cross]

Why do you want to convert your text to outlines?

[martin_kohler]

I must do that for a company. They said its important for PDF's

[Derek Cross]

Exactly wrong – change printers!

[Derek Cross]

This is what Dov Isaacs writes:

The practice of “outlining text” is one of the poorest and most misguided workflow practices that we know of. Why?

•     Outlining can dramatically reduce the quality of the rendered text on both screen and print, often yielding what appears to be overly emboldened text, especially at lower magnifications. This is due to the loss of intelligent scaling that “hinted fonts” provide in terms of how to render the font outlines at different magnifications.

•     Each glyph becomes an independently-defined polygon bloating the size of the output file.

•     Rendering time (RIP time for printing) can increase dramatically because outlined text isn't cached as glyph definitions and rasters are.

•     In the case of PDF, you lose the ability to search for text and do any text touch-up in Acrobat/Reader. You also lose “accessibility” for screen readers and the ability to export to other text-based formats.

There is only one situation in which outlining text makes sense and that is in the situation where you are applying some artistic effect(s) and transformations on text that cannot be be performed by simply scaling, rotation, and/or obliquing of text realized by fonts such as one might do in creating a logo. Note that some font EULAs explicitly prohibit such glyph distortions, modifications, etc. by outlining or otherwise. (Again, this is not an issue with fonts sourced from Adobe. Read your EULAs for fonts sourced elsewhere!!)

[Andy_Baz]

As much as i agree with Derek's 'change printers'.

There are unfortunately times when outlining may be necessary.

I often send artwork to a company whose workflow tends to have issues with fonts in PDF's even though they are generated using the old PDFx/1a.

My solution: Generate PDF from indesign then Use Acrobat DC preflight to convert fonts to outlines.

Doing so this way, keeps the original inDesign file in tact, and is much quicker than manually outlining all the fonts.

I have yet to find an issue doing it this way, fonts flatten correctly, transparencies stay as expected, and overall look stays exactly the same (or at least so far in my experience) even on complex files.

[SJRiegel]

Agree - never use Create Outlines in InDesign to convert entire documents. Lots of text effect get lost.

You will find that color is removed from text frames, auto bullet and numbering go away, as do paragraph rules and underscores.

[cmgap]

You might want to find out why this is a requirement. For example if they tell you it's because they don't have the fonts on their system, an alternative would be to provide the fonts. You can embed or substitute fonts in Acrobat or when you export an InDesign document to PDF. Use Adobe PDF options to export to PDF in InDesign > Font embedding and substitution

As you can read from experienced professionals and InDesign instructors, creating outlines is not a solution designed for large pdf documents and doing so will cause other problems related to the quality of the document. There are always trade-offs.

[SJRiegel]

We always provide PDFs with fonts embedded for press. Most of the printers have no problem working with these. Still, there are some printers that insist upon opening the PDFs in Illustrator. Using Acrobat to outline the fonts when sending files to those particular printers solves the problem. 

If it were possible, I would opt for the "find another printer" solution. This won't happen for several reasons.

1) the design department doesn't chose the printers - the purchasing department does. All print work goes to purchasing, and they source and buy the printing.

2) Given the volume of printing done, the jobs tend to go to the lowest bidder if they can deliver a decent-looking print job on time. If that means that we have to provide files with outlined fonts sometimes, then that's what we do.

[Barb Binder]

You have your answer, Martin, but following along with Derek Cross's thinking, you might find this article (written by another one of our ACPs) to be an interesting read: https://indesignsecrets.com/outlining-fonts-is-it-necessary.php

I know that we often have to do what the client asks, but this might be something to gently share with them, as well.

~Barb

[Dov Isaacs]

I've been following this thread without commenting so far without comment (other than being quoted) and quite frankly, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

A few thoughts:

(1)     With regards to printers requiring that submitted PDF files have text “outlined,” per my quoted comments, yes it degrades quality (typically overly-bolded and distorted details depending on the particular font's design) due to geometric scaling as opposed to intelligent scaling governed by the “hints” in the fonts, yes it yields bloated PDF files that take much longer to transmit and RIP, and yes it yields a non-searchable and non-retouchable PDF file.

(2)     Adobe not only produces content creation, layout, and editing software, but also provides RIP software used for Adobe PostScript and native PDF rendering (Adobe PDF Print Engine). We are also quite aware of the capabilities of the RIP software of Adobe's competitors (such as Global Graphics). As far as we can tell, most of the mishegoss with regards to the need to outline text stems from dicey clone PostScript implementations dating back from over 20 years ago. Typically, if you can open a PDF file in the free Adobe Reader and page through the PDF file and all pages render correctly on the screen, the likelihood of problems when printing is exceptionally low. If the same file is viewed via a soft-proofer (i.e., screen-based proofer) based on the printer's RIP/DFE and no anomalies appear, that likelihood of problem is essentially 0%. It is more likely that you will have RIP problems with gradients, color, etc. The bottom line is that requirements for outlining text are really based on fear due to memories passed down from very few experiences from two decades ago as opposed to today's reality. If you have a print service provider that really still has routine issues with fonts, you have great evidence that the print service provider is using RIPs and at least some workflow software that should have been replaced 20 years ago!

(3)     The idea of opening PDF files in Adobe Illustrator is horrific. Adobe Illustrator is not, repeat not, repeat yet again not a general purpose PDF file editor. The only PDF files that can be safely opened in Adobe Illustrator are PDF files saved from the current or earlier version of Adobe Illustrator with the “save editability” enabled (an option that is not available with any PDF/X file) and if all the fonts used in the PDF file are actually installed on the system. Otherwise, the symptoms you can experience include (a) font substitutions, (b) text spacing changes, (c) unexpected color space changes/conversions, (d) modified content, and (e) lost content (especially if the original Illustrator had content placed via links). Why is this true? Adobe Illustrator doesn't support the full PDF specification, only the subset of PDF needed to represent Illustrator objects! When encountering “printing issues” presented by Adobe customers to us on these forums, perhaps the most common single cause of such problems is the routine opening and supposed “fixing” of PDF files by prepress operators opening the modifying arbitrary PDF files in Adobe Illustrator! The second most common cause of problems are supposed “fixups” made by automated PDF workflow products that some vendors convince some prepress operators to routinely use!

(4)     The printing industry is in severe crisis these days due to the organic changes in the industry and what is actually printed. Many print service providers are desperate for work and would be well-advised to abandon their “my way or the highway” attitude towards modern best practice PDF publishing workflows and their customers.

(5)     I don't expect or even want a print service provider to “fix” my press-ready PDF/X-4 files. If a print service provider believes there is an issue with my files or content, I expect them to contact me and advise me of what they believe the problem is and let me make fixes in my source files if in fact there really is a problem. In many cases, one man's desired effects is another man's “problem.”

          - Dov

[Derek Cross]

Thanks Dov.

[cmgap]

And Amen! Thank you for adding clarity to the discussion.

[Dov Isaacs]

By the way, if any of these print service provider geniuses who push outlining text, editing PDF files in Illustrator, or other such medieval practices wish to directly discuss this with me, I'll be more than happy in both my role as a Principal Scientist at Adobe and as chair of ISO TC130 WG2/TF2 (the PDF/X development task force within ISO) to oblige. I'm fairly easy to contact!

          - Dov

[Andy_Baz]

Great to get your expert opinion on this matter Dov.

I think what we also have to understand is that not all printers are large companies that operate with an Adobe RIP workflow (wouldnt it be nice if they did!).

Certainly in my case, where ive encountered issues and the need to outline work, are with sign writers and smaller scale printers, as we provide artwork for all kinds of media.

The sign writers and smaller scale printers i’ve dealt with generally have sub-standard RIP’s supplied with their printing equipment which can lead to problems outputting or even submitting files to, and ultimately forcing the sign writers and smaller scale printers to ask for people to supply artwork that works on their sub-standard rips.

We also have to take into consideration that not all printers/graphic designers are as well educated in their field of expertise, and just aren’t generally aware of how a rip actually works and what it can handle regardless of who it is made by!

I’ve been in the industry for around 15 years now, starting off working as a machine printer and eventually settling into the origination side of things, and in those years i’ve probably made every mistake in the book…but learnt from it!

Fortunately i have the desire to not keep making the same mistakes and constantly look to further my knowledge and expertise in what i do, a trait i feel that seems to be lost more and more these days!