Import PDF with embedded font

[affinitydummy]

It would be neat if importing a PDF with an embedded font had an option to import it in a way that was visually correct, rather than textually correct.

 

I've got some files with, for example, proprietary music fonts, and they import as gibberish, even though Preview.app can view them just fine.

 

This is kind of an obscure request, but it sure would be handy sometimes!

 

[MEB]

Hi affinitydummy,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

We intend to support embedded fonts at some point however this is not a simple task and still may take a while until it's ready.

[Tonda]

Hello affinitydummy,

 

if you need this way of importing now and don't have any other way, here is my solution: Graphic (formerly iDraw, now by Autodesk) imports PDF so all the fonts that are not available are automatically converted to curves, then you can easily copy everything via clipboard into the Affinity Designer. The quality of import is very good - right now I tried to download local newspaper in PDF and import it and it is without problem. The downside is that Graphic cost 30 USD (you can find it on Mac App Store).

 

There is probably some free solution too - I tried Scribus (open source page layout application), to which you can import PDF and then export to PDF in curves, but the quality of text conversion is not as good as in Graphic (the letters are little bit scattered).

 

Hope it helps and have a great day.

[ben_eSM]

Actually this is the most important feature that's missing for me. I often get PDF files to work with from my clients and not being able to use embedded fonts is keeping me from switching completely to the Affinity. Of course I can request and encourage my clients to send me PDF files with text converted to curves, but usually they don't have those possibilities as the files comes from a 3rd party.

 

I do wonder why this feature isn't listed in the common feature request thread and also not on the roadmap, although I do understand that this feature isn't easily done. However, I'm sure it is one of the most anticipated features for many people. (Hidden hint for the community to state their support for this feature here. )

[MikeW]

Both pdfToolbox & Acrobat can convert type to curves. I cannot imagine people in the business of obtaining PDFs from 3rd-parties not using either application.

 

I do have a vector editor that can utilize the embedded font subsets. And it works very well, generally. However, as regards editing text, with embedded font subsets, just like editing text in Acrobat, the characters one adds have to be what is used in the PDF which limits the utility of such a thing if there is much to edit. This can be mitigated only by having the same font(s), and often enough, the same version(s) of the fonts.

 

It will be good when/if AD obtains the ability to utilize subsetted fonts. But it isn't a panacea for widely re-purposing such PDFs.

[mgabriel]

I just tried Designer on something bigger than a one page project. I didnt even THINK Designer would not be able to import PDFs with embedded Fonts.

It was a total desaster. A 32 page Project with more than 40 external PDFs to integrate, mostly advertisements. Some PDFs even crashed Designer...

Sadly, like this its unusable to me for any project with external people working on it.
Atleast convert to curves and make the text not editable is the least Designer should do.

[ben_eSM]

On 1.4.2018 at 8:57 PM, MikeW said:

Both pdfToolbox & Acrobat can convert type to curves. I cannot imagine people in the business of obtaining PDFs from 3rd-parties not using either application.

 

I do have a vector editor that can utilize the embedded font subsets. And it works very well, generally. However, as regards editing text, with embedded font subsets, just like editing text in Acrobat, the characters one adds have to be what is used in the PDF which limits the utility of such a thing if there is much to edit. This can be mitigated only by having the same font(s), and often enough, the same version(s) of the fonts.

 

It will be good when/if AD obtains the ability to utilize subsetted fonts. But it isn't a panacea for widely re-purposing such PDFs.

 

As a web agency it doesn't make sense to utilize tools made for print publishing in the first place. Besides that, it's not convenient if I have to run each PDF file I get through a tool like Acrobat or pdfToolbox, before I can use it in Designer.

And let's not forget that neither Acrobat nor pdfToolbox are cheap. In that case it would be more convenient to stick with Adobe entirely, which I don't want.

 

That leaves it as one of my most important feature requests for Affinity Designer.