[scribus] Embedding fonts in a PDF file

Michael Holmes mh.holmes at verizon.net
Wed Feb 17 22:12:49 UTC 2016


How do you check to see that the file is created properly?  I don't have
any way to examine a PDF file to see whether the fonts are embedded.

> There are a number of open source utilities that can list the fonts in a PDF.
> poppler is available with "brew" and has a pdffonts utility that can list the fonts referenced in a PDF and whether or not they are embedded. http://macappstore.org/poppler/
> You can also run the PDF through ghostscript. If ghostscript shows any messages about font files, the document references fonts that are not embedded.
> Regards, William Bader, Director of Research and Development at SCS, http://www.newspapersystems.com
> $ pdffonts colorcir.pdf
> name                                 type              encoding         emb sub uni object ID
> ------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
> Times-Roman                          Type 1            Standard         no  no  no       8  0
> $ pdffonts eulalia-programa.pdf
> name                                 type              encoding         emb sub uni object ID
>
> ------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
> VLEXCA+GillSans-UltraBold            TrueType          WinAnsi          yes yes yes    229  0
> VLEXCA+Larsseit-Bold                 Type 1C           Custom           yes yes yes    169  0
> VLEXCA+Larsseit-Light                Type 1C           Custom           yes yes yes    164  0
> VLEXCA+Larsseit                      Type 1C           Custom           yes yes yes    160  0
>
> $ gs -sDEVICE=nullpage -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH colorcir.pdf
> GPL Ghostscript 9.16 (2015-03-30)
> Copyright (C) 2015 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
> This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
> Processing pages 1 through 1.
> Page 1
> Can't find (or can't open) font file /usr/share/ghostscript/9.16/Resource/Font/NimbusRomNo9L-Regu.
> Can't find (or can't open) font file NimbusRomNo9L-Regu.
> Querying operating system for font files...
> Loading NimbusRomNo9L-Regu font from /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/n021003l.pfb... 4138108 2771096 5513624 4134924 3 done.
>
>
>
>
Thanks William, this is very helpful.  It gives me a way to check 
without having to reboot into Windows.  Both pdffonts and gs are 
verifying what I found the hard way: the fonts aren't embedded except in 
the case where I specify "Embed all fonts" in the PDF export dialog.

(Christoph:  Specifying "Subset" on the Book Antiqua font in Preferences 
did not make a difference.  The fonts still don't get embedded (or 
subsetted, apparently).  BTW, I looked at the online Scribus manual and 
I do understand now what "subset" means in this context).


Michael





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