The Nightmare of Embedded Fonts...

[Barrister]

Gentlemen,

Some background: I'm an attorney in Texas who must file documents in .pdf format without embedded fonts. The entire state is moving to an efile system and those designing it have decided that embedded fonts are unacceptable. I need an editor that either won't embed fonts or that will allow me to delete them, as do hundreds of thousands of other attorneys in this state. I downloaded your trial version editor today, installed it on an 32 bit XP professional (SP3) machine. I have an email I want to attach as an exhibit to a motion I intend to file. I need the email to prove a point. It's evidence.

I printed it from the email program (outlook express) using your printer driver to create a .pdf. I carefully set the printing preferences NOT to embed any fonts. Yet it still did. Each and every time. A copy is attached. I open it and find font #9 is embedded, with no way to delete it either. I've seen on youtube that Acrobat will allow deletion of embedded fonts, but I *really* do not want to buy their product.

So, my basic question: Why is your PDF Xchange Editor still embedding fonts when I tell it not to? How can I work around this?

Thanks in Advance,

Paul Velte

[Patrick-Tracker Supp]

Hello Barrister,

Thank you for the post. I will start with saying that we no longer support the use of Windows XP. You can unembed fonts using the File> Save optimized copy options in the Editor.

In the driver, you can choose to never embed fonts as shown below:


I hope this helps!

[Barrister]

Does the optimize save work in the trial version? I just tried it and it gives me an error message.

I noted the 'never embed fonts' and tried it, with the same result. I just tried it again, and you can see in the attachment, the 9th font is still embedded. It's TimesNewRoman and I made sure it was one 'never' to be embedded.

The OS shouldn't matter; this software is compatible with 32 bit XP. I can try it on a 32 bit vista or 64 bit win 7 machine I suppose.

[Barrister]

Update:

I installed the trial version on a vista machine. Then opened the offending .pdf file and used the save as optimized feature. Told it not to embed the times new roman font... saved it. opened it and it's attached. It still has the font embedded... Why?

[Barrister]

Additional Update:

This time, I used a different email program (Thunderbird) on my Vista machine to open the email I need to save as a .pdf. Opened it, printed it to the PDF Xchange printer driver, and got what you see attached. I naturally set the print options NOT to embed any font. The result has two embedded fonts. I tried the optimized 'save as' on it too: with no change.

Paul

[Lzcat - Tracker Supp]

Hi Barrister.
I'm afraid that PDF standard does not allow do not embed fonts in all cases. If you use simply English characters and common fonts all is ok, but if you try to use something outside it may be not displayed correctly on client system unless you embed used fonts. So if yo use symbolic fonts - they must be embedded. If you use characters outside ASCII charset - in most cases font should be embedded. This is why we embed many fonts even when you specify do not embed them.
In case of your last file (Emails 1B.pdf) - your printing application used ligatures when printing, and this is why we embed fonts to display them (please note that ligatures are font-specific).
HTH

[bqxmprij]

Barrister-

That is very weird that Texas is going to a non-embedded font standard. Federal courts have started requiring the exact opposite--all fonts embedded. http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/2010/10/ ... r-filings/

But, to get you out of your nightmare and to the point of where you can file, you can either: (a) scan the document and skip all of this; or (b) try a different pdf printer, print to .tiff, open the .tiff, and then print back to pdf.

PDF Tracker Support Crew-

On a side note, are there any plans for the PDF Tracker print driver to support printing to other formats? The ability to do so is helpful sometimes.

Thanks.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi bqxmprij,

Thanks for the post and suggestions, however, in the future, when posted questions that are not related to the current topic, please create a new topic so as not to distract from the OP's questions.

Regarding your question, as far as I'm aware, there are no such plans.

Thanks,

[Seeker45]

If the main goal is "no embedded fonts", shouldn't "Print as Images"



solve this?

Cheers
Ralf

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hi Ralf,

Better than print as images is do click the button "More..." on your screenshot and for "Text Rendering Mode" to select "Outline Always" - this will still preserve what was text as vector objects, and at the same time convert all text to curves - so there will be no machine recognizable "text" as such that could suffer from missing or non embedded fonts and still won't make the file as large and heavy as printing to images would.

Regards,
Stefan

[Barrister]

Barrister-

That is very weird that Texas is going to a non-embedded font standard. Federal courts have started requiring the exact opposite--all fonts embedded. http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/2010/10/ ... r-filings/

Thanks for that link. The Texas efiling standard is here: www.txcourts.gov/media/741802/149197.pdf (it's on p. 4, rule 3.1E).
The ostensible reason for not allowing embedded fonts is smaller file sizes. But I haven't seen any embedded font that took up more than a few K of space, so the savings seems minimal, and the hassle is HUGE. I've had a real nightmare trying to get things filed, and all you get back is a cryptic message saying the doc didn't conform to standards. I'm finding rejections for text that is highlighted, bookmarks, email addresses (that embed a hotlink), and all sorts of fonts--even ones that are common, like Times New Roman, which don't need to be embedded, yet many programs do, (like I demonstrated above). The federal standard you cite makes far more sense. I don't know what the yahoos on the Texas JCIT were thinking, but it was STUPID.
Programmers that want to sell PDF editors need to take heed of these requirements or else they're going to miss out on a lot of business from attorneys.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello Barrister,

Being in the field - we also notice that most places require the exact opposite of what Texas wants - as this ensures that the file will display properly with the said fonts NOT present on a future machine. Most places even want the files to be in PDF/A format - where ALL fonts should be embedded. I guess there are differences around the world though, and we will have to comply with them

I hope the above suggestions to e.g. make the drivers not embed any fonts, and converting everything to curves would help with your filing!

Cheers,
Stefan