Does anyone know how to embed text/fonts in AF Publisher?

[DanM.]

Hi All,

I have designed a book manuscript in AF Publisher and a book cover in AF Designer. Does anyone if the procedure for embedding text is the same for both? I've tried clicking all of the correct items in the setup (embedded preferred) as well as the "more" menu (embed fonts/All), but KDP keep informing me that my fonts weren't embedded properly in my PDF, so they did it for me.  If anyone has information on this, I'd appreciate it, thanks.

[stokerg]

Hi @DanM.,

Do you have any more information about the error from KDP?  As long as you are setting the Embed Fonts option to All, then the fonts will be embedded into the PDF.

[walt.farrell]

What fonts have the problem?

[DanM.]

Hi Walt and stokerg,

My book cover has a PNG background graphic with 2 art images and text on top of it (art images and text are on same layer). The 2 images I'm using are transparencies. I've also tried this book cover by changing all images to .svg format. The font I'm using is called "Lorin", which is available as a TT or O font Type. When exporting, I'm choosing 1. Press Ready, All Fonts (Embed fonts). I've been unclicking on "Subset Fonts", "Allow Advanced Features" and Embed ICC Profile, because 'm not sure what they do, although I've also tried exporting with all of these checked, just to see if it helps. KDP recommends "flattening" all layers into one PDF image.

[Alfred]

20 minutes ago, DanM. said:

The font I'm using is called "Lorin", which is available as a TT or O font Type.

Do you have the TTF version or the OTF version installed? (Strange things can happen if you have both installed at the same time.)

[DanM.]

It looks like both font versions (TTF and OTF) are installed, should I remove one of them?

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, DanM. said:

It looks like both font versions (TTF and OTF) are installed, should I remove one of them?

Yes.

[DanM.]

Does it matter which one is installed, TTF or OTF? Is one generally better than the other for embedding and PDF export?

[walt.farrell]

I don't know if it matters, or not. 

[PaulEC]

Basically:

TTF is older and more widely supported. (EDIT: Having said that, I don't think there are any modern apps that don't support OTF nowadays!)

OTF generally has more advanced typesetting features and often includes embellishments like ligatures and alternate characters.

Personally, given the choice, I always use OTF.

[Alfred]

43 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

Basically:

TTF is older and more widely supported. (EDIT: Having said that, I don't think there are any modern apps that don't support OTF nowadays!)

OTF generally has more advanced typesetting features and often includes embellishments like ligatures and alternate characters.

Personally, given the choice, I always use OTF.

Please see:

https://www.high-logic.com/font-editor/fontcreator/tutorials/the-difference-between-truetype-and-opentype-fonts

[kenmcd]

4 hours ago, PaulEC said:

OTF generally has more advanced typesetting features and often includes embellishments like ligatures and alternate characters.

There is no difference in features between OpenType-TT (.ttf) and OpenType-PS (.otf). In older original TrueType fonts that may be true. But for this font, both versions are OpenType. This is the case for most fonts now.

13 hours ago, DanM. said:

Does it matter which one is installed, TTF or OTF? Is one generally better than the other for embedding and PDF export?

TTF and OTF are embedded differently in PDFs. And right now there appears to be less issues with TTF.

Your issue may be related to the embedding permissions in this font. Please test the TTF fonts (after you a have un-installed the OTF fonts) and let us know how that goes. I seem to remember an issue with the particular setting used in this font. On my phone at the moment so I cannot test. If you still have issues we can change the setting to test (later today when I am back at my computer).

[PaulEC]

1 hour ago, LibreTraining said:

There is no difference in features between OpenType-TT (.ttf) and OpenType-PS (.otf)

Thanks for this, I'm obviously a bit out of date!

I'm now rather puzzled by why some fonts are provided as both .ttf and .otf as it would appear that there is no practical difference between them?

[kenmcd]

1 hour ago, PaulEC said:

I'm now rather puzzled by why some fonts are provided as both .ttf and .otf as it would appear that there is no practical difference between them?

For most uses there is no practical difference.
So many people have heard the same nonsense repeated over and over that it has become "common knowledge" even though it is wrong.
In one article linked to here recently as evidence, the author actually compared an old TrueType font (not OpenType-TT) to an OpenType-PS font - ridiculous.

And the "PostScript curves are better" blah, blah, blah argument.
Lucas de Groot (who created Calibri) did a talk at Typo Labs 2018 where he compared using PS curves to using TT curves for various contours on different glyphs. The score was about even as to which type of curve was better in the different cases. This is from someone who actually knows, using the actual tools, not someone regurgitating some biased nonsense they read online about curves math in a theoretical setting. Real world font design is different.

There are a few use cases where there is a valid reason to use PS fonts.
99.99% of the time the user does not know what these are.
Some are related to typical uses/workflow, and some are to work around bugs in software and hardware.
But most of the time the blanket "OTF fonts are better" is just ignorance.
For those that say they look better, I have offered to put both versions on a page and have the person tell me which one is which - no takers so far.

And then there is the web fonts arena where nearly 100% are OpenType-TT.

Commercial font vendors stay out of the discussion and provide both.
What ever makes the customers happy.

So you are not alone in the confusion. 🙂

[kenmcd]

@DanM. I just tested Export to PDF using the original OTF fonts and it worked fine - with and without sub-setting.
So your issue is probably just because you had both formats of the fonts installed and that confused the application on Export to PDF.

[DanM.]

Font versions can be confusing, thanks to all who responded to this with information and links, I'm back at my desktop today and going to start by removing the TTF Font that I'm using and see how how OTF responds to embedding, then, I might try the TTF and do the same. I'll post the results when I'm done.