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Question

Is there a utility that will batch test fonts to check which CAN and/or CANNOT be embedded in an Export to PDF?

Why?

I want to organise a (too large) collection of fonts so that when working on a project that must have fonts embedded in the PDF I will only have embed-able (?) fonts installed to choose from. This will help enormously as the job is to a tight deadline and frequently I get to the stage of creating PDFs only to have to return to the (Quark) file and change fonts, which is not good. (yikes!)

I use Nexus Font for managing fonts, it doesn't do this. At the moment I'm doing it font by font, a batch utility would be a huge help.

P.S.

I understand the problem is in the font licenses, I have been everywhere looking for a solution so not to have to manually check each font file's properties individually... if Acrobat can tell, surely a utility could exist??

Update

Font embeddability shows in a font's Properties window, in the Details Tab. If I could get this to show in an Explorer like window for lists of fonts that would be super. I'm on Win7 and haven't been able to show this, yet. I will persevere.

OK I may have a solution. The program MainType - Windows Font Manager will show the Embedding info for fonts. I've only just installed the trial so don't know if it's an ideal solution but I have high hopes of now being able to separate fonts by this attribute. (Not connected to MainType, just found it with all the searching)

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3 Answers 3

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As a suggestion (after doing a similar search to yours, I'm guessing, in search of an answer to your question), you will find that the embed setting tends to be the same for most or all of a given foundry's font files. If you find two by a given publisher that prohibit embedded, I'd go ahead and delete anything by that foundry.

We are, after all, in the 21st Century. If you can't embed a font in a PDF then it's pretty much useless for design purposes.

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  • For years we only send results to the print shops with all text outlined, not embedded. This is for a minority language, where we have experience that non-speakers tend to mess up details. So not-embedding does not make any font "useless" for us.
    – Martin Zaske
    Oct 13, 2020 at 15:42
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There is this tool which I just came across which shows you the fonts contained within your PDF:

https://github.com/phst/PDFFonts

Combine this with a little script to generate a PDF with a char in each of the fonts on your system; run the linked tool (pdffonts) on it; then compliment this result with your list of all fonts and you'll have your answer.

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Test before you make the layout or force the client to pay for the font. This is why there are standardized sets. Adobe FontFolio is real expensive(I only worked for 2 companies that actually owned it) so buying a few good sets like Myriad, Helevetica etc will relieve the headaches. If you took the time to download then be prepared to put in extra effort to make sure it works before being a yes man. Learn to control the clients rage into using free fonts.

Rule one: If downlodaded off a site, test before commiting. Rule two: Buy a real set to use.

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