Checking a PDF for OpenType fonts

[Chad_Chelius@adobeforums.com]

Is there a way to check a PDF file (I'm thinking using the preflight function but could be another way) for any font other than OpenType and flag/warn/error the file? I have a need to not allow any font other than an OpenType font in a PDF file. It seems that when I go under the document properties and look under the font section, any OpenType font gets converted to Type1. Is there another defining attribute of those "once" OpenType fonts that I could use as a flag to segregate the fonts? Thanks!

[Leonard_Rosenthol@adobeforums.com]

Native embedding of OpenType was only introduced in Acrobat 7, and ONLY for a FULL embed - no subsetting.

The reason for this is simple. An OpenType font is really a TrueType _OR_ Type1 font that is wrapped inside of an "OpenType Wrapper" along with a variety of additional features. Since those features aren't useful for rendering a PDF - only for text layout/reflow (which isn't what PDF does) - there was no need to include it and waste space/increase file size. Instead, Acrobat (and other PDF production tools) will "unwrap" the OTF and put only the base font data into the PDF. When this happens, there is no indication that the original font was OpenType.

So...

Short answer - no, there is no (reliable) way to tell.

Leonard

[Chad_Chelius@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for the reply Leonard, as always your insight is very helpful. It does spur another question for me though. I am generating a PDF-X1a file in which I need to determine the presence of a font other than OpenType. If I were to create an Acrobat 7 compatible PDF from my native application files, could I then determine the presence of non OpenType fonts and then run the PDF Optimizer for X1a? Or does that sound like a poor solution to the problem?

[Leonard_Rosenthol@adobeforums.com]

If all your OpenType fonts were from Adobe's Font Collection, then there is a way to do it. All Adobe Fonts are Type1/CFF-based, which will appear in the PDF as Type1C fonts.

So you could scan the PDF for any font that isn't Type1C or CIDType0 (Unicode-version of Type1C) and fail in that case.

But a bigger question, that I just don't get, is WHY do you want to do this? What's wrong with classic Type 1 or TrueType fonts that you don't wish to allow them? PDF/X-1a doesn't care. No PDF processor/RIP cares. So why do you?

Leonard

[Chad_Chelius@adobeforums.com]

Good question, and I agree! Here's the deal. This customer has a system that takes multiple PDF files and generates one big ad that is composed of several smaller ads. It's kind of a "build your own ad" system. The reason that they want OpenType is because this system does a find/replace on the PDF file and enters a phone number specific to the person who is creating the ad. Since all of these ads are being created on a mac and the system is doing the find/replace on a windows-based system, the only font that will work (according to the system developers) is OpenType fonts. I don't really have a direct connection with the developers at this point so I can't give you extensive details for the reasoning behind this, I just tried to give them what they are asking for.

[Jon Bessant]

Sounds like a red herring - the developers (probably) choose OpenType
since it's cross platform and can contain more than 256 glyphs (and
they're newer fonts) ...

Jon

[Aandi_Inston@adobeforums.com]

The rules of PDF/X-1a are such that it would be impossible to have
OpenType fonts in a PDF/X-1a file. They would have to be converted to
another font type.

Aandi Inston

[Chad_Chelius@adobeforums.com]

I understand that Aandi, but since my goal is to identify a PDF file that used any font other than OpenType, I think that distilling it as an Acrobat 7 compatible file to achieve only that result, then Optimize it as an X1a would work. Anybody correct me if I'm wrong. Idealy, I would want the customer to have only OpenType fonts available to their designers, however since that is not an option, I need another way of verifying that a designer used only OpenType fonts in their document.

[Chad_Chelius@adobeforums.com]

Leonard,
It sounds like this is going to be messy either way. I tried distilling a file that has an Adobe OpenType font and when I view the document properties/fonts, the font shows up as Type 1 with Custom Encoding. When you say I can have the file fail if it sees a Type1C font, where can I do that? In distiller? The Preflight routine? Or does it need to be scripted?

[Leonard_Rosenthol@adobeforums.com]

What is the original authoring application from which you are generating Postscript? Is this an Adobe application? Quark? Word?

And why are you going that route instead of direct to PDF?

As far as Type1C - yes, you would create a custom preflight script.

Leonard

[Aandi_Inston@adobeforums.com]

>I understand that Aandi, but since my goal is to identify a PDF file that used any font other than OpenType, I think that distilling it as an Acrobat 7 compatible file to achieve only that result, then Optimize it as an X1a would work.

No, I don't think so, because making a PDF with Acrobat will NOT embed
OpenType in the PDF, according to Leonard's reply 'Acrobat (and other
PDF production tools) will "unwrap" the OTF and put only the base font
data into the PDF.'

Acrobat can show a PDF that contains an OpenType font, in other words,
but will not make one.

Aandi Inston