Text: Create outline: bullets vanish

[BeckOzineedhelp]

Hello bright people,

Can anyone tell me if there's a way, when creating Outlines of text, for BULLETS to not disappear completely? Can we ask Adobe to work on this issue? Not sure I want the hassle of manually creating & superimposing a column of tiny circles.

[Derek Cross]

You can add special bullets (and colours) to a bulleted list via a Character Style, no need to outline.

[Willi Adelberger]

The correct answer is, never outline text as you loose automatic bullets and numbers, paragraph rules, frames and shadows, xyou loose also text frame borders and areas and much more. Don't do that. Why would you do this? This is not necessarry, as it causes only problems, much more than mentioned.

[samr81661156]

Shouldnt you outline text before print? If yes then having a second stage to outline bullet points is ridiculous 

[BobLevine]

No; this should NEVER be necessay! 

[lyzajh]

I've worked as a designer in Film for 10 years and all print vendors ask that text be outlined; with the increasing amount of fonts out there, they may not have the font. Yes, you should outline text when sending out for print or even when emailing.You are right in thinking and saying this.

[Willi Adelberger]

No, as fonts are embedded in a PDF file. If a font’s license does not allow embeddding it does not allow outlining neither. So you have to get another font. 

[rob day]

and all print vendors ask that text be outlined

I’ve worked in design and print production for 30 years and have never outlined any text.

AcrobatPro lists a PDF’s embedded fonts in Document properties, so all you have to do is check the font embedding before sending out the PDF.

When I have run into online printers requesting outlines I always ignore the request and have never had a missing font problem.

[BobLevine]

@lyzajh 

I'm not sure why you felt compelled to add this comment to a settled discussion. If you had done so 25 years ago you might have had a point but in the year 2023? No, you're wrong about this and if all of your print providers are looking for outlines, find new print providers.

[lyzajh]

I'm also not sure why people feel so righteous & insolent when replying to
someone's question on a discussion board. Starting sentences with "Why you
would need to do this is beyond me but if you must..." and writing in all
caps "NEVER", and in your case the response is no less rude; we
shouldn't dismiss people's curiosity to learn and contribute to discussion.
Also, why would Adobe install a function that is "NEVER" to be used? I'm
actually not wrong; you just lack the ability to seek why this person is
asking this question ie: what is their project and specifications. My reply
is to say the question is justified and this person has a right to ask this
and feel they will not be attacked or belittled, just as you have shown in
your response to me.

Now I will go back to working with all my lovely and knowledgeable vendors
who create the graphics you see in movies and film up on the big screen 🙂


--
Lyza Heyden
Assistant Art Director + Graphic Designer - IATSE 891

M: 778-686-0887

[SJRiegel · Accepted solution]

Also, why would Adobe install a function that is "NEVER" to be used? 

The function exists to use for small bits of text when certain types of graphic effects or letterform manipulation are needed. It was never meant to be used on full documents, and doing so nukes a lot of text- and text-box based effects.

When a printer insists upon receiving outlined text, there is a preflight tool in Acrobat that can acomplish this without damaging the text effects.

[rob day]

Also, why would Adobe install a function that is "NEVER" to be used?

For special type effects:

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

It may well be that film imaging systems work differently (although they don't, not in my moderate experience — neither Premiere nor AVID has ever demanded outlined fonts), but this discussion, as with most discussion here, is about print.

Outlining files has been obsolete for print output for a very long time, and the consensus is that if a printer is so old-school they demand it, you need to find another printer.

And with all due intent to reduce the flames here, it's you who jumped into an old discussion and said everyone in it was wrong... from a perspective fairly far off the main track. Context is important. 🙂

[rob day]

Also, as @SJRiegel suggests it’s more than just disappearing bullets—text frame fills, strokes, underlines, strikethroughs all get destroyed. Imagine trying to edit or proofread a longform document with thousands of text lines where the characters can no longer be edited, and you have to worry about this.

Changing to this:

[Jens Trost · Accepted solution]

Hi @BeckOzineedhelp,
do you mean converting text into paths?

If so, you just expierenced one of the reasons why you shouldn't outline in the first place.
If you have to outline, for whatever reasons, do it in the PDF.

Outlining text is not necessary unless you do maybe some sort of cut contour.

[Colin Flashman]

There is a more reliable way of creating outlines from type that relies on Adobe Acrobat. The details can be found over at Creative Pro: https://creativepro.com/outlining-fonts-the-2016-edition/

I did write an article "outlining" (pardon the pun) the issues of outlining type recently on my blog: https://colecandoo.com/2021/02/15/outlining-the-problem-text-outlining/

[Willi Adelberger]

Look my anser here:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/paragraph-rules/td-p/12904216

[Scott Falkner]

As others have said, converting text to paths is almost never necessary in InDesign. The only exceptions are when you want to use the text as a frame (for example to mask a photo) or manipulate the paths (for example to merge cursive fonts) or sometimes apply a gradient (which is an PITA when applied to text).

In adition to losing bullets and numbering you will also lose underlines, tab leaders, strikethroughts, table frames and fills, and the strokes, fills, and effects on your text frames. Outlines also get messed up becasue InDesign cannot apply outlines on compound paths if you want the oultine aligned to the outside or inside of the path.

There aren’t no reasons to convert to paths, but there are few.

[Willi Adelberger]

That is not a bug. There is no need ever to outline text in InDesign. If you need outlined text, do it in Acrobat Pro. That is a function there. You require a function of the wrong tool. There are reasons why and why not to use this tool. 

BTW, there are workarounds, but I would not recommend them neiter as converting bullets and numbers to text before. But you run into problems with cross references, page numbers, frames, strokes and more other things become lost too.

[rob day]

buggy, has half-assed features that are not implemented all the way

Then use a different page layout application.

[BobLevine]

So, not only do you not understand what a bug is, you clearly have no idea what a monopoly is, either.

[BobLevine]

This discussion has outlived its usefulness. Locked!