Creativebits.org

an All Creative World site
lphillips's picture
7 pencils

Font substitution in PDF 1.5 after RIP

I work in production for a large publishing house. We recently switched from distilling our pages from Indesign CS1, through Acrobat Distiller, to create PDF 1.3s, to exporting directly from Indesign CS1 to create PDF 1.5s. As I understand it, the difference here is that the fonts used to become embedded, and the images flattened, and now we are creating unflattened PDFs-- as requested by our company. When now export to PDF, if we look on our screens, the PDF has all it's correct fonts. But once we upload them to our printer, in one case: when we have a font "glypha oblique" on the page, it turns to glypha roman, every time when the page is output. Every other magazine in our company has made this swtch, and we are the only ones having any font substitution problems. We are also the only ones using Glypha oblique. Outlining the fonts is not an option, and nor is flattening the files. In the meantime, we are distilling the pages containing this one font, in our old manner. Even the printer, and all our pre-press experts do not know what is going on here.

Anyone have an idea what is happening, and how to fix? Thank you!

Commenting on this Forum topic is closed.

natobasso's picture
3953 pencils

That font is most likely protected. Try a test: Run a file with Times Roman and see if that embeds. If it does, you may need to change your font Glpya to something else...

Wouldn't it be better for all concerned to use PDF/X-1a instead?
[edit: Nevermind, you said flattening isn't an option.]

Do you have windows or mac font? Looks like there's an Opentype version of this font good for both op systems:
http://www.fonts.com/findfonts/detail.asp?pid=201257

More on formats here from a member of cb, Jim Dempsey:
http://www.jdempsey.com/create-better-pdfs-by-understanding-the-formats/

----
Powerpoint is not a design application

lphillips's picture
7 pencils

Hi. Thanks for the input. Unfortunately, Glypha is purchased, licensed to us, and not protected. All other weights/ styles of the font work out just fine. It is an adobe font. We can use the PDF/X-1a, as we used to, and we have been doing this as a work around on the pages that this font is on. But we'd love to solve the problem.

3dogmama's picture
1991 pencils

Could your copy of Glypha become corrupted? Have you tried loading another version of this font?

ttfn!
3dogmama

"Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised." - James Thurber

natobasso's picture
3953 pencils

What format is the font, OpenType? What symbol/symbols are you using with Glyph or is all the body copy in Glyph?

----
Powerpoint is not a design application

natobasso's picture
3953 pencils

More on the Glpha font in Adobe's archives:
http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/html/readmes/GlyphaStdReadMe.html

And an important note on that page, basic no no for designing with fonts repeated:

One should not, however, select a base font which has no style-linked variant, and then use the bold or italic styling button. Doing so will either have no effect, or result in programmatic bolding or slanting of the base font, which will usually produce inferior screen and print results.

By the way, is there a particular glyph/symbol you are using the Glyph font for? A ™ or ® symbol perhaps?

----
Powerpoint is not a design application

lphillips's picture
7 pencils

We are using the actual font, glypha oblique, and not the little styling button. Thanks for the thought though!

Creativebits is a blog about creativity, design and Macs. We also have a critique section where you can post your work to get opinions and a forum to discuss any design related topics.

Recommend us on Google

Latest critique

Marketplace