[Scribus] Legality of Font Embedding

[frank gaude']

Here's the way I see it regarding Acrobat: version 6 and 7 are very 
strict when it comes to permitting the embedding of fonts based upon the 
tags that are within the font files themselves. There are four tags that 
tell Acrobat 6 or 7 how to handle the fonts: everything is allowed 
(installable mode0, embedding of this font is not allowed, only printing 
and previewing of the document is allowed (read only), and editing of 
the document is allowed. These are the four tags that FontLab is capable 
of placing onto a font.

When you try to export a file as a PDF an error message when come on 
telling you what the situation is. Now, if the font that is not 
embeddable is already on the machine then everything is okay, at least 
on that machine. For all others the PDF will use a substitution font in 
place of the one that it will not embed.

So, as long as Scribus uses an Acrobat 5 to do the embedding all seems 
to be okay in turns of fonts, but the legality of it all depends on what 
the font company has to say about it.

Asif Lodhi wrote:

> Are you aware of any font-query tools that tell whether a font is, or 
> is not, embeddable?  I wonder what the behavior of non-embeddable 
> fonts, or Scribus, would be if I did try to embed such a font.  Yes, 
> what is the Scribus' behavior with such [non-embeddable] fonts?  In 
> addition, though I haven't yet tried, What is the status of adobe 
> fonts that come bundled with the Acrobat reader for Windows?  Can 
> those fonts be embedded?
>
> Thanks and regards
>
> Asif
>
> On 4/30/05, *frank gaude'* <tanzen at sbcglobal.net 
> <mailto:tanzen at sbcglobal.net>> wrote:
>
>     Asif Lodhi wrote:
>
>     > Hi
>     >
>     > Someone has questioned the legality of embedding fonts in PDFs and
>     > transporting those PDFs on other machines.  I am curious about the
>     > same.  Any comments?
>     >
>     > Best regards
>     >
>     > Asif Lodhi
>
>     Well, being a long-time font designer myself I can tell you that a
>     modern font design program like "FontLab 4.6" knows about the various
>     states a font collection can be in, set by the original designer or
>     company who owns the font. There's about five conditions, embed, embed
>     but not permit editing, not permit embedding at all, etc.
>
>     Many font houses don't permit any embedding because a programmer
>     can go
>     in with the right tools and strip-out the code of the commercial
>     font.
>     Microsoft permits embedding in most of the fonts they distribute with
>     Windows and on their web sites. Most other companies don't permit full
>     embedding as far as I've seen from my years of work, since about
>     1979.
>
>     Lawyers will have much to say about font embedding.
>
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