Using font subsets in Acrobat Pro.

August 22, 2006 10:59 AM

How do I embed a Chinese font subset into an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file?

This is driving me batty. I know there has to be a simple explanation I'm missing, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to create a portable document with Chinese characters.

I'm using Microsoft's IME to input Mandarin Chinese into a standard Word document -- then converting it to a PDF. Displays fine when I view it -- but only because I have the fonts on my system. If I take it to another computer, I just get the [][][][][][]s.

What ultra-simple "guaranteed-to-make-me-look-stupid" step am I overlooking? How can I tell Acrobat to embed a font subset?

posted by RavinDave to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Which version of Acrobat are you using? Are you using the Print to PDF version straight from Word?

If so, try this:

1. File -> Print and select the Adobe PDF option.
2. Click on the Properties button then the Adobe PDF Settings tab.
3. Under the Adobe PDF Conversion Settings you have a drop down menu - presumably you've not set up a setting for printing these fonts (default is "Standard") so click on Edit... then the Fonts tab.
4. Using the Add button, add the fonts you need to "Always Embed" and Save As a named .joboption that you'll be able to use again in the future.

Hope this helps, feel free to ask more/email me.
posted by ceri richard at 11:21 AM on August 22, 2006

Do you have access to Illustrator? You could always convert the text to lines, and then you wouldn't have to embed the font. I'd guess that word doesn't have this option, though. If it comes down to it, you could take a screenshot of just the Mandarin characters, and embed that in the document instead.

Also, this is a little situation-specific, but might be of use.
posted by god hates math at 11:24 AM on August 22, 2006

ceri richard ... I'm using Acrobat 6.0 Professional, which (when installed) puts a conversion button into the Word toolbar. I'll play around with your suggestion and see what happens.

g-d hates math ... Since it works on my system with the fonts stored locally, I could just as easily save the pdf itself as a jpeg directly from Acrobat, but I want to use that only as a last resort. I'm doing a transcription of Pimsleur's Mandarin and want people to be able to grab the sentences with th text tool (for example).
posted by RavinDave at 11:32 AM on August 22, 2006

Be aware that fonts have a flag in them that controls how they can be embedded in PDF documents. Some will not allow embedding at all.
posted by D.C. at 11:11 PM on August 22, 2006