[scribus] subsetting / outlining

[Mike Sleger]

On Aug 2, 2011, at 3:56 AM, JLuc wrote:

> Le 02/08/2011 11:44, JLuc a écrit :
>> Hello,
>> 
>> I understand 'outlining' as transforming a 'character and font' data
>> into a 'vector graph' data, thus logicaly loosing searchable data.
>> 
>> I have read that 'subsetting' is what really happens now when 'outlining' is choosen.
>> Is this true ?
> This matter remains...

Very confusing, yes?  The form prompt text should be changed so it correctly describes the actual feature instead of a deprecated feature.

>> And my main question is : what is 'subsetting' ?
> This list is very responsive as with technical DTP issues, that's great but i can search aswell :-) so I found http://desktoppub.about.com/od/pdf/f/subsetfonts.htm about Subsetting Fonts :
> 
> If you subset the font, the person who receives your PDF would need to have your same font in order to make changes to your PDF. The file size of the PDF would also be smaller because you are embedding only part of a font. When you subset a font, you usually just embed the characters you are using (obviously it depends on how you are subsetting your font). That's why somebody on another computer would have to have your same font in order to make changes.
> 
> Now I guess these subseted font documents are still searcheable.

A detail I found in my experiments with subsetting in Scribus is that if you view the PDF font properties, say in Acrobat Reader, you won't see the real font names.  So any person who receives your PDF won't know what the fonts are.  Adobe InDesign subsets fonts with the correct names in the PDF, for example "Eurostile-Condensed (Embedded Subset)", whereas Scribus subsets fonts with generic names in the PDF, "Fo0S0" in the same example.  It's for this reason that I don't subset (at least until Scribus exports font data correctly).