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Re: Some fonts are not embedded in the PS files

A small number of applications, such as Quark and Freehand, do not use the standard PDF printing path and instead print to PostScript printers via the LaserWriter 8 compatibility path. The applications which use this printing path are typically PostScript centric applications.

As you noted the PDF printing path, all fonts required in the document are embedded and subsetted to contain only those glyphs that are required for proper rendering.

Regarding:
So - is there really a policy of not embedding a known set of fonts? If so, is there a way to force it in nonetheless? When we created a PS from TextEdit, the fonts were embedded, but got a unique name (i.e 'xxxx+Times-Roman').

Yes, when the fonts are subsetted, the XXXXXX as part of the font name is the subset name. This is so as to not confuse a font subset with the full font and to distinguish subsets from one another.

The remainder of this message applies only to the LaserWriter 8 compatibility path.

In the LaserWriter 8 compatibility path the results rely partly on the application involved. Some applications using this printing path, such as Adobe applications, generate all the font data themselves, doing their own subsetting and applying their own choices as to which font data to actually generate. Most, if not all, other applications using this printing path use the "space character hack", that is, they draw the space character in each font they want to use and rely on the printing system to download the entire font. When the fonts are streamed by the LW8 compatibility path they are not subsetted and the full font is downloaded. For this reason, this printing path does not emit data for CJK fonts; they are too large to download without subsetting.

A small number of other fonts are also not embedded with the LW8 compatibility path. When printing directly to a printer, the fonts which are listed in the print queue's PPD file are never embedded into the print stream by the printing system. (Note that if the application itself, such as Adobe's applications which stream their own font data themselves, may still generate the font data without the knowledge or aid of the printing system.) When printing to disk, the only fonts which are not embedded by the printing system are the "standard" 13 fonts: Times-Roman, Times-Bold, Times-Italic, Times-BoldItalic, Helvetica, Helvetica-Bold, Helvetica-Oblique, Helvetica-BoldOblique, Courier, Courier-Oblique, Courier-Bold, Courier-BoldOblique, and Symbol.

At Apple we have been strongly urging applications to use the PDF printing path for all printing. However, there continue to be a small number of applications that want to generate their own PostScript data. At WWDC in June of 2003 we announced that we are deprecating the LaserWriter 8 compatibility path. In Panther we introduced the job submission API which allows applications to submit their own PostScript data directly into the printing system. When using this printing API is completely up to the applications what they choose to generate, including which fonts and which glyphs in those fonts. We think this is a much better long term solution. While the LW8 compatibility path isn't going away right away and applications which have been using it will continue to work, we are not actively working on it and we are putting our efforts into improving the PDF printing path experience.

Hope this helps clarify things.

David


On Mar 29, 2004, at 11:05 PM, Ron Peleg wrote:

Hi,

We are experiencing a strange problem which we suspect is related to the PostScript driver.
When we create a PostScript from applications such as QuarkXPress and FreeHand, the Times font (and I think some additional standard others) is NOT embedded in the generated PS. At first we though this was a Quark specific problem since we work with QXP, but once we saw this happens with other application we though it might be appropriate to address the question to this list.

So - is there really a policy of not embedding a known set of fonts? If so, is there a way to force it in nonetheless? When we created a PS from TextEdit, the fonts were embedded, but got a unique name (i.e 'xxxx+Times-Roman').

Thanks in advance,
Ron Peleg, Creo _______________________________________________
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References: 
 >Some fonts are not embedded in the PS files (From: Ron Peleg <email@hidden>)



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