how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

[disbellj]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

Yeah G_Town, that's what he's saying. Frankly I say screw it. If the font licenses were followed to the tee by everybody, there would be no such thing as print. Adobe packages the fonts, so does Quark. But guess what? That's not legal. Customers send fonts to prepress that have been packaged, so that we may actually be able to do our job. Guess what? That's not legal. I need to make a type change, and must use the customer's font so I know that the change will look just like it would if they made it. Guess what? That's not legal. I can get me a PDF sent to me, and if I have a PDF editor that uses the embedded fonts to make type changes, I can physically do that, but you know what? That's not legal. They make the application vendor break the law because if the fonts aren't sent, then the jobs can't be done. So the vendors send the fonts because jobs have to get done (it's been this way since before I started in this industry 14 years ago). They make the designer break the law by sending those fonts to the output provider (of course the designer must agree that the font is legally able to be sent, but I bet that most people just click OK and do it so they can get their job printed). They make prepress break the law just to get the job done. Everything's illegal. I'm tired of this crap (see why I'm looking for a different career?). Even if someone bought the "correct" font to allow editing, there's nothing in the softwares we use that allows that editing?!?! The font vendors have effectually given a lockbox without a key. Everybody except those in the ivory white towers that never actually get their hands dirty doing prepress jobs can make statements like Leonard made. Now we're told that even outlining fonts is not good enough. So basically, like I said at the start of this post: If the font licenses were followed to a tee by everybody, we wouldn't even have print (or we would have print, but might as well be a blank piece of paper if it can only include images). Those of us in the trenches do what we've always had to do to get the jobs out.

Don

 

[Mark Hoffman]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

Hey Don, cheer up. Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!!

Leonard,
If the printer/prep house owns their own copy of the fonts which are in the job that has been submitted to them, is it legal for them to use the fonts which the designer has provided? In my last job, we made sure we owned the fonts used, but kept the designers fonts live in the document.
Didn't Adobe used to license fonts by the number postscript rips you had?

Thanks,

Mark

 

[G_Town]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

Well I must say that if it's illegal to outline a font thereby making it a simple vector shape/path that is completely uneditable as the original typeface then submitting that doc to your printer is completely asinine and we as an industry need to say WTF!

Oh and yea Don be of good cheer Turkey day cometh, your registering about a 7 on the old tension meter ;-)

Edited by: G_Town on Nov 20, 2007 2:15 PM

 

[disbellj]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

MArk and G_Town,

Ain't no thing ya'll. This ain't new. This is all old news. But that's why I don't talk about it much. It makes no sense and gets me frustrated. Happy Thanksgiving. (BTW, I always have had too much tension. Working on that, and with God's help one day will overcome it).

Don

 

[Cory Smith]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

if you didn't accept files that were converted to outlines, it wouldn't matter, my guess is you would be out of business. The customer wants to drop of a disk, and pickup their job when it's ready, I will do as much as I can (within reason) to make that happen.

 

[ratbag]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

Although I couldn't give a toss about licensing restrictions when outputting a job because such restrictions are spastic, I'm not sure that it is a violation. You can no longer use the font as a font, and really, it's no longer the font anyway. It's a shape.

Also, I'd like to know how converting fonts to paths affects quality on a 1-bit high res output device? Font hinting is for anti-aliasing low res devices like computer screens.

 

[G_Town]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

The only quality issue I can think of converting fonts to paths is that if you try to adjust the size after the fact you will see the simplified path as you increase the size, but if you are being supplied the job with outlines it falls back to the designer to make that change anyway. Which is the way I prefer it mainly so there is no question about who supplied the copy.

I have been routinely converting to paths for many years with no issues.

 

[disbellj]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

I know Nexus Vector workflow converts fonts to outline upon import. Very precise.
Neo uses the embedded fonts to make type changes.
I guess the thing that bothers me is: How many years of my life do I have to worry that I may be breaking the law just by doing my job?
Do we have a library of fonts? Yes, bought in the PostScript days before OpenType came about.
Have we purchased a copy of every font of every job I've ever done? Don't know. Couldn't say. Don't have the time to look at licensing on every job I do, or looking through the library to see if every font that comes in on every job has a copy in our library.
Not trying to break the law, but looks like just by doing my job I am. Sucks.

Don

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements


In response to Chris' post and others in this thread, a few thoughts:

(1) Font +hinting+ is not something restricted to either screen display or for devices that support anti-aliasing. +Hinting+ helps determine exactly which typographic features are critical to render under low magnification conditions. Low magnification conditions are not restricted to 72 dpi screens. The degree to which font hinting assists in rendering type effectively depends on (a) device resolution, (b) the "point size" of the text being rendered with the particular font, and (c) the style characteristics of the particular typeface. (a) and (b) are fairly obvious. In the case of (c), the issues have to do primarily with serifs, thin stems, small open areas within particular characters, etc. For example, at 1200dpi, you probably won't see that much benefit of hinting using Helvetica. On the other hand, with the same conditions, Adobe Garamond or Bodoni would show significant differences in rendering. Without hinting, the effect is typically over-"boldness" or blotchiness of rendered text. Considering that many digital presses run at 600 dpi, the effect is even more pronounced under those printing conditions.

(2) Converting text to outlines not only degrades the print and certainly the display quality, but for PDF workflows, it results in highly bloated file sizes, text that is no longer searchable in Acrobat or Reader, and text that can no longer be subject of text touch-up or edit tools, either of Acrobat or third-party plug-ins.

(3) Generally speaking, font vendors that license fonts that completely prohibit embedding in fact also prohibit such outlining of text or even rasterization of same to get around the embedding restrictions. You should read some of the EULAs accompanying fonts. Actually, you +must+ read them if you are going to use a particular font in your designs.

(4) Whether you or I like the unreasonable restrictions put by various font vendors on their products is irrelevant. Those restrictions are there and are indeed enforceable via contract law, at least in the United States. +Unreasonable+ or +spastic+ or even +we've done it this way for years,+ is not a defense under contract law. Unless you are a lawyer involved with intellectual property issues, I'd be very careful about offering opinions about what is +not+ a violation of a contract. Fonts are not significantly different than other digital assets such as clip art, photographs, etc.

(5) As the marketplace for fonts matures, some font vendors will certainly be looking for areas to increase +yield.+ One of those areas often targeted is licensing violations. As a printer, the last thing you want to do is tie up your time and financial resources fighting such a lawsuit over use of customers' fonts.

(6) Designers and print customers need to be educated as to what they can and can't do with digital assets. They must check the EULA (end user license agreement) restrictions before licensing fonts as opposed to bellyaching about the situation after the fact. They should remember that they are the customer and if they don't like the restrictions of a particular font vendor's EULA, they can indeed bargain for a modified EULA, unlocked (for embedding) font files, etc. just like they bargain for anything else in commerce. If enough designers, print customers, and printers +just said "no"+ to font vendors with unreasonable font embedding restrictions and voted with their wallets, perhaps such font vendors might get the message as customers vaporized.

(7) With regards to any and all fonts licensed from Adobe, we certainly +do+ allow printers to use the versions of such fonts supplied by the customer with the restriction that the printer +must+ have their own licensed copy of that font. The easiest means of accomplishing such licensing from Adobe is with Adobe's Font Folio product. Compared to the cost of licensing individual fonts from Adobe and certainly compared to the various hardware and supply costs faced by printers, the cost of Font Folio is fairly reasonable.

(8) Note also that all fonts licensed from Adobe include +preview and print+ embedding privileges for PostScript, EPS, and PDF. For PDF workflows with embedded fonts, if all you are doing is preflighting, previewing, proofing, and printing those PDF files, there is no need for any further licensing of fonts. If you want to edit source document files or touch up text in PDF files (not recommended in the general case), licensing of the fonts is required.

- Dov

 

[G_Town]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

Wouldn't his mean Adobe and any other software vendor that allows converting fonts to paths or outlines in their software is in some type of violation as this is also a "work around" for having the actual licensed font?

Yes you could make the case that it is also applicable if you are using a font and need it outlined for various filters/effects but the fact that it can be used so that fonts do NOT need to be supplied with a job is suspect.

Just curious as to your take on this.

 

[Chuck_Revised]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

My understanding is that the font vendor is not selling an object, but an image. Just think of a copyrighted photograph.... it's not the JPEG file you were furnished, it's the visual representation of the picture. Thus outlined or not, the image of the font is what is copyright protected.

Certainly it is a gigantic morass (sp).... But I appreciate Dov's point of designers voting with the $$$.... This is probably the only resolution in the future.

Does RJ Donnelly own every font utilized in its massive production? I wonder.....

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

First of all, the original topic is conversion of +PDF text to vector outlines+. Adobe Acrobat itself does not directly support that function.

The Adobe layout and drawing applications that do effectively allow for such conversions (InDesign and Illustrator respectively), do so for the purpose of allowing artistic text effects that cannot otherwise be achieved via text rendered with fonts, nothing more and nothing less. The feature was not designed as a workaround for fonts that cannot be embedded in non-temporary output streams or as a hack for defective RIP (and other workflow) software. Likewise, if you manually flatten transparency, you often get outlined text as a byproduct. Again, this was not done as a way of circumventing font EULA restrictions. The fact is that for better or worse, EULA language that prohibits outlining of text is not available for processing by these programs and for better or worse, neither OpenType nor TrueType font embedding flags have a flag to indicate that such outlining is prohibited. And the original Type 1 fonts have no embedding restriction flags at all.

- Dov

 

[G_Town]

Re: how to convert PDF text to vector outlines - and other elements

Well this certainly is a conudrum.

thanks for clarifying.