Pdf – How to embed Arial in PDF when PDF has Helvetica

adobe-acrobatfontsghostscriptpdfprint to pdf

So, I've got a PDF file that's generated by a program that uses the Base 14 fonts, so that it contains "Helvetica" and "Times Roman". When I look at that in my copy of Acrobat 7.0 on Windows (for example), it shows these with Arial and Times New Roman. I'm fine with that.

The issue is that I'd like to publish this PDF file on lulu.com, and they want all fonts embedded. Including the Base 14. I don't have a copy of Helvetica, so what seems the natural thing to do is substitute Arial for Helvetica and embed Arial. How can I do that?

I tried using the Print feature in Acrobat (note: this is the full version, not Reader) to print to a PDF file using Adobe's "Print to PDF" printer driver, and selected the "Embed All Fonts" option in the print settings. This worked for the fonts that I had actual copies of, but instead of "printing" Arial for Helvetica — which it would do if printing to a real printer — it leaves all the Helvetica as Helvetica and doesn't embed it.

Any suggestions for alternate ways to do this? What I really want is just a copy of my PDF file with ALL fonts embedded, and I'm quite happy if doing that means making one of the usual substitutions for the "Helvetica" that's in it. I'd be happiest if I can do that within Acrobat or other software that I have (pdftex, maybe?), but I'm willing to install another free utility if I need to.

Best Answer

In order to embed a font in a PDF document you must have that font available on your system and the font needs to allow embedding. Almost all fonts allow embedding, so that shouldn't be a problem.

A manual way to embed a font in Acrobat (I'm using Acrobat 8 Professional, so hopefully it is available in 7 - I don't have access to 7 anymore) is to use the "TouchUp Text Tool"

Tools > Advanced Editing > TouchUp Text Tool

With the tool selected, click on some text that uses the font you want to embed to select it.
Right click and choose Properties...
Choose the Text tab
Look for the Permissions Field - It will tell you if the font can be embedded
Directly to the Right of that information is a checkbox for "Embed"
Check Embed
Hit Close
Save the Document
That font should now be embedded - check the Fonts setting to make sure
```
File > Properties... > Fonts
```

You'll have to repeat this process for each font you want to embed.

Related Solutions

Firefox Fonts – How to Get Firefox to Use MS TrueType Fonts on Linux

Edit: I completely updated this answer after getting some breakthrough advice from a colleague.

Here's what I inserted in /etc/fonts/local.conf (inside the <fontconfig> element):

<!-- Replace Helvetica with Arial -->
<match target="pattern">
    <test qual="any" name="family">
        <string>Helvetica</string>
    </test>
    <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
        <string>Arial</string>
    </edit>
</match>

Similarly for Times -> Times New Roman. (See my full local.conf here.) The key was to use binding="strong" for the <edit> element. (Also, using "assign_replace" mode instead of "assign" causes something similar, except that then it's too aggressive: also Verdana gets replaced with Arial).

Changes in font configurations are effective immediately. Besides testing in Firefox, you can check that it works like this:

$ fc-match helvetica
Arial.ttf: "Arial" "Normal"

If you run into problems, the best help is near: man fonts-conf. (Although even with the documentation, the workings of the font system seemed somewhat complicated or unwieldy to me.) You can also try to "debug" what's really going on using a command like:

FC_DEBUG=4 fc-match helvetica

In addition, FC_DEBUG=1024 fc-match helvetica shows the list of config files that affect the font matching.

Windows – How to reduce file size produced by Microsoft Print to PDF

I found out that the "Microsoft Print to PDF" printer can be tricked into using a lower resolution than 600x600 DPI. Follow the instructions here, but do not add a paper size, but change the resolution (almost at the end of the two files) from 600x600 to 300x300 or even 150x150. Then the resulting file size is smaller.

An alternative is the Win2PDF printer, where one can set the resolution using the printer settings dialog.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Firefox Fonts – How to Get Firefox to Use MS TrueType Fonts on Linux

Windows – How to reduce file size produced by Microsoft Print to PDF

Related Question