Publisher...UGHH!!

[tina]

Hi this is my first question...I work in prepress, and have a monthly job come in that gives me trouble every time. Its created in Publisher...ugh... and then sent to me as a pdf. It contains about 25 different fonts and is RGB. I can change the job to CMYK in pitstop, but the font issue stumps me. Im missing Futura MdCt italic, and I dont know enough about Publisher to ask the customer to embed the fonts or at least send it to me so I dont have to substitute for something else. I dont want to have to replace this font with something similar, because it could change the layout of the whole job. Does anyone know a solution for this problem? I have tried to walk the customer throught the steps to get ready for commercial printing in Publisher, and she says she is embedding the fonts, but when I get it, its still missing. I'd rather not even work with ublisher but somethimes I have to. If someone knows an easy way of correcting this, please respond.

Thanks!!

 

[LoganBlade]

Re: Publisher...UGHH!!

If you have indesign
get her to send you the Futura MdCt italic font (have her zip it) reate a PDF with the font embedded and insert into you Publisher PDF. The font will be embedded and might work?

 

[JohnS]

Re: Publisher...UGHH!!

I assume you indicated to use Tools-Commercial Printing Tools-Fonts-Embed TrueType fonts when saving publication?
Note that I too receive a monthly pub. which always has one font not embedded. It’s maybe a non-embedable font or not True Type.
Perhaps you could use your own FuturaMdCnI and check text flow? Quite a common face.
If customers have not supplied fonts I always just load one of mine and go for it. Any prepress shop should have IMHO a thousand or more fonts. If you need FuturaMdCnI I’ll be glad to email you a copy of mine (Type1).
As to the CMYK issue, Tools-Commercial Printing Tools-Color Printing-(check)CMYK might help.
I've had to explain the use of the Tools-Commercial Printing Tools pulldowns to several of my clients that send me Punisher Files or PDF created from them. PDF is not really an editing wrapper. Have them send you the .pub files, saved for "Commercial Printing" and you may be able to more easily make necessary prepress changes. I'm assuming you have Publisher. I had to buy it just because of several clients sending me same.

 

[disbellj]

Re: Publisher...UGHH!!

tanna,

I agree with what John S has said. I would add, that it depends on how the PDF is made which also determines this I would think. If the PDF is made with Adobe's PDFMaker plugin for Office, the problem may be the setup in the printer itself. If you go to Start menu and select Printers and Faxes, then right click on the Adobe PDF printer, click Properties, I go through each tab starting with General, and under Printing Preferences > Adobe PDF Settings tab, uncheck 'Rely on system fonts only; do not use document fonts', and under Paper/Quality tab > Advanced > Graphic > TrueType font, make it 'Download as Softfont' Then I go to Advanced tab > Printing Defaults, and set these same options again in this tab as I stated above.

Don

 

[kyle]

Re: Publisher...UGHH!!

If you can get the font file, it can be embedded in the PDF by saving a postscript file from Acrobat Professional, then distilling the postscript with Distiller - as long as the Distiller options are set to embed fonts and the font is in one of the folders Distiller is set to look in. If your customer is using Publisher, they're probably on a PC, and there's a good chance the font is a Truetype file (TTF). TTF files can be set by the creator to disallow embedding, and this annoying property is honored by most applications. If that's the problem, the TTF file data can be easily edited to allow embedding. If you can get the font file from your customer, send it to me and I'll check it out.

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Re: Publisher...UGHH!!

Just be very careful about such advise about editing TrueType or OpenType font files to change the embedding restrictions. Such "edits" may actual be felonies under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act in the United States and other laws in other jurisdictions.

Even though embedding restrictions on fonts may be highly obnoxious, they are part of the licensing agreement of the font. And you don't have the right to unilaterally discard the license agreement.

- Dov

 

[kyle]

Re: Publisher...UGHH!!

Thanks for the warning, Dov. For that reason, I never "fix" the font and give it back to anyone (which would be the easiest way, so it wouldn't have to be done everytime a periodic order is submitted). I only do it on my end to get the job done. I believe that the law is also technically being violated nearly everytime a customer submits a job to a printer as a package with the fonts included, because the document creator is not licensed to distribute the fonts. The only way around this would be to convert everything to outlines, which is problematic with InDesign, and would multiply the file size dramatically for a large document that is mostly text.

Do you know what the logic is behind font creators completely restricting their fonts and rendering them nearly useless? I would think that this would be bad for business because anyone sending their documents out for printing would certainly not prefer to use fonts that are going to cause so much trouble and increase their prepress charges - and the sort of people that create content for printing exclusively with their own devices are probably also the sort that just download free crap fonts from the internet. Do they think that everyone is converting to outlines?

 

[dkinsac]

Re: Publisher...UGHH!!

Just get the font, install it on your computer and place the PDF in InDesign. Then export it as you wish, eps, pdf and rip that puppy!

 

[cyn]

Re: Publisher...UGHH!!

If you run into this problem quite a bit, you may want to consider purchasing software that would eliminate your font frustrations. Our company makes a software product called PrintTHAT! that solves the issue you are experiencing. Our customers (printers) now promote incoming Publisher files instead of pushing them away! There are other products out there that do similar jobs, so don't get too frustrated, just look around for a solution that is best for you.

All the best,
Cyn