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I can get to the PREFLIGHT tool and then don't know what to do. I would really appreciate some detailed instructions. I have the PROFILES tab open and then I go down to EMBED FONTS. When I double-click on EMBED FONTS, I get a SAVE IN screen but nowhere has it asked me what fonts I wish to embed. Please help.
Ray chesin 107 days ago
The "Embed fonts" option will always embed all fonts in the document. I don't understand what you mean with "a different font" - the idea of embedding fonts is to make sure that whoever receives the document will be able to view/print it with all fonts available, regardless of which fonts they have installed on their system or their printer. Fonts get embedded either fully (the whole font is embedded in the file), or subset embedded, in which case only those glyphs that are actually used in your document get embedded. When you execute this profile, it will ask you for a filename to save your new PDF as - the one that contains the embedded fonts. It will leave your original file untouched. So again, this profile will embed all the fonts that are used in your document. If you want only a subset of fonts embedded, you need to embed them all at first, and then you can unembed the ones that you don't want using the "Save as Optimized PDF" option. If you want more control over which fonts get embedded you need to look into a 3rd party preflight tool like e.g. Enfocus PitStop.
I guess I don't understand the concepts & procedures enough. I wanted to replace the generic Courier Standard font used in the PDF with a slightly darker Courier font (Courier 10 BT) -- and this font only. The reason behind this is to make reading the document easier for readers of screenplays, who are employed by film production companies in Hollywood. I'm trying to make the best impression possible on them in the hope of maximizing my chances of selling a script. I will therefore investigate Enfocus PitStop. Thank you so much for your help, Karl. (I'm in Parksville on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada.)
Ray chesin Commented 107 days ago | Report
Ah, you don't want to embed a font, you want to change the font that is used for text in your PDF file. The best way to do this is to go back to the application that created your PDF file and change the font there, and then re-create your PDF. There is a way to do this in Acrobat, but the problem is that this will not reflow your text - no two fonts are the same, so chances are that some areas of your text will not look good: Either too much space between characters, or not enough. Does the application you used to create the screenplay support a font selection?
Karl Heinz Kremer Commented 107 days ago | Report
Yes, my application (Movie Magic Screenwriter) supports a font selection. All Courier fonts are fixed pitch, so I don't think the appearance would be different. The standard font for script submissions is Courier 12 point and 10-pitch, no variations acceptable or one's script is immediately rejected. When I write the script in a darker font (like Courier 10 BT) and export it to PDF using the export feature in my application, I lose the darkness and the font appearing in the resulting PDF is Courier Standard, whose glyphs are thinner, making the words harder to read. Do you think I should have tried using Acrobat to do the conversion to PDF rather than using the export feature in my application?
Ah, that may be the reason why your font does not end up in the document. Yes, try to use Acrobat to convert the document.
I tried to convert the document using Acrobat X Pro but got an error message saying it was an unsupported file type. Movie Magic Screenwriter uses the .mmsw extension.
If you are on Windows, try to print to the Adobe PDF printer, that will also generate PDF using Adobe tools.
I will have to try that tomorrow as I have to shut down now. Also, you mentioned in one of your comments that there may be a way to do what I require using Acrobat but you anticipated possible text reflow problems. I'm guessing those may not occur because we're dealing with specific Courier fonts which are 12 point and 10 pitch. Can you describe what procedures to follow? I can be back online tomorrow at 10 am PDT (Pacific Standard Time). Many thanks for taking so much of your time to help me.
Sorry for the delay, but I am dealing with a dead MacBookPro... In Acrobat X or XI you would select Tools>Content>Edit Text and Images. Then you select the text that you want to change. In the Tools pane, you will see a dropdown list that allows you to change the font. for the text selection.
Karl Heinz Kremer Commented 106 days ago | Report
I am back, Karl. I will try what you suggest... and have found something very interesting indeed. I am using two computers, one running Win XP and one running Win 7. I tried what you suggested re. printing to the Adobe PDF printer from my application (MMS) and found under PRINT SETUP > PROPERTIES that there was a box checked which said "Do not send fonts to Adobe PDF". So, I unchecked the box and hit OK. Then I tried to print to PDF and it only printed two of the 121 pages of the document. Weird! Another thing... I should have mentioned that I can successfully embed Courier MMS or Courier 10 BT (both of which are darker Courier fonts) in my PDF document... but I can only do it one page at a time.
Ray chesin Commented 106 days ago | Report
I tried what you suggested in your last comment and found it worked perfectly but I can only convert one page at a time because I can only select one page at a time. I will play around and see what I can do.
I would try the Adobe PDF printer.
I accomplished it using the Adobe PDF printer and am now trying to figure out exactly what I did. I think I need a coffee.
Let me know if you need more information. Good luck with the screenplay.
Now I can't duplicate what I did. This is going to take me some time.
Karl, I tried the Adobe printer conversion with an older screenplay formatting application that I had ("Final Draft") and there was no problem keeping the fonts used in the application. I'm going to order an upgrade of that and stop using my current application. At least now -- thanks to you -- I understand a whole lot more about the process of embedding fonts.
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