some fonts resist embedding

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Morda

Hey!

I understand that fonts can be incorporated into a pdf by way of either embedding or outlining them and that the user can choose between the two methods. I created a one-font "Lorem ipsum" document and exported it to pdf using both methods. The two pdfs, as I expected, were of different size and the information about the used font (displayed by Acrobat) was different, too: "Type 3" for outlining and the font's name for embedding. Just in case I tried with two other fonts - with the same positive results. So far so good. But when I wanted to repeat the excercise with Cambria, the situation changed. Although during the export process Scribus did not protest (e.g. I could move the fonts between the "Embed" and "Outline" boxes using the green arrows), the two exported pdfs were of the same size (actually, they are identical) - too small, considering the size of the font istelf - and "document properties" did not show any information about the font at all. For another font I checked, Calibri, exactly the same situation: embedding failed.

I need my pdfs to include embedded fonts, so I'd like to ask whether you have any idea why Scribus will not let me embed neither Cambria nor Calibri.

Yes, I deselected the "Subset" option in both cases. And yes, both fonts have sufficient embedding permissions ("Editable").

Greets,

Morda

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Nermander

As far as I understand it is because the fonts are Open Type and Open Type can not be embedded into PDF (at least Scribus can not yet do it). So they will be converted to a type 3 font.

I found this page that gives a little hint on the complexity regarding embedding of fonts:
http://typophile.com/node/71297

This is probably the bug report to look at
http://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=8235

QuoteIf otf font use TrueType outlines, we can embed the font as TrueType because getting a TrueType font from such a font is straightforward and such font is supported by pdf <= 1.5. If otf font use PostScript outlines, then we have no choice, the font *cannot* be embedded as is, that's pdf specs. For mathematical reasons otf fonts with PostScript outlines cannot be converted to TrueType with sufficient reliability and guarantee of quality. In general case those fonts cannot be converted as a Type1 font either, because of limitation in the number of glyphs a type1 font can contain. Consequence : otf fonts with PostScript outlines have to be subsetted. We convert such fonts as Type3 subsets. Direct consequence : for those fonts, embedding font as a whole or subsetting them cannot be a user choice either.

Morda

Well, this is too complicated for me and exceeds the amount of time and energy I´m willing to spend on learning about these things. I thought that there were just OpenType and TrueType fonts and that´s it. But no, there´s also something called "OpenType fonts with TrueType outlines", "OpenType fonts (TrueType flavored)" and some more things I don´t even remember now.

So I decided to use a radical solution: I changed the problematic fonts and the embedding problem disappeared.


Thanks for your help.


Morda