If I have an Adobe Illustrator file, and I save it as a .pdf - it looks like the fonts are included in that .pdf file. (I think this because when I open the .pdf file in Reader it looks the way I expect it to.) However, when I open this same .pdf file on a different computer (or workstation) with Adobe Illustrator - Illustrator says I 'don't have the font I need'. This doesn't make sense to me because - If I can see the document correctly in reader, I would expect it to be there for Illustrator as well. Can someone explain why this is? I am asking because saving a file as a .pdf for print seems to handle most font troubles that come up - but sometimes I need to change the text in a file before I print it... I am hoping there is a way to open a .pdf so that .ai recognizes that the font is in there. But I am unsure on the details of saving as a .pdf in Illustrator, how fonts are handled, and what is possible.
Answer
Adobe is one of the big font sellers on the planet. It is a way to enforce font licensing deals.
Most people dont realize fonts cost money. A lot of money in fact. If the average user would just be able to extract fonts seamlessly from PDF files then there would be a lot less value in the font market, since now you could just copy fonts from all over the place quick and easy. Most people wouldnt see a problem with this, again, as they arent aware that fonts cost money.
So adobe wont extract the font, even though it it is in the PDF file. Though, the font may have been embedded only partially in the PDF file making it less than useful for editing. Anyway Acrobat can edit the PDF with embedded fonts.
Theres no technical reason why they couldnt do this they just dont want to, because it conflicts with their business interest.
It is a bit like adobe wont edit pdf files marked as noneditable, and wont print pdf files that are nonprintable. Theres no encryption that stops them from doing this. They just voluntarily enforce their own rules.
No comments:
Post a Comment