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When I am trying to open a PDF in Photo/Designer with embedded fonts that are not localy installed, Designer/Photo suggests to replace them with a similar installed font. Whe I am openeing the same PDF with Adobe Reader the embedded font are recognized und correctly displayed.

 

Is there any solution on my problem? 

 

Thanks

George

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Hi George,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Currently Affinity Designer/Photo doesn't support embedded fonts, so you have to install them on your system to see (and edit) the document correctly.

Adobe Reader does support embedded fonts that's why it displays correctly there. We hope to add support for embedded fonts at some point too.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's rather surprising, and more than a little disappointing, that it's projected to take so long.

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It's rather surprising, and more than a little disappointing, that it's projected to take so long.

Just guessing, but I suspect it might be because supporting font embedding legally is complicated because it involves various convoluted copyright restrictions & sub-licensing agreements.

 

For example, see this Adobe document about the four possible permission settings that can be included in an OpenType font, according to the OpenType specification, or this page discussing sublicensing issues for the Adobe Type Library (ATL). This Microsoft page includes general information about font redistribution and license issues, font piracy, etc. This Design Shack page includes a brief discussion of font licensing & a list of resources.

 

Many more related articles can be found on the web by searching on 'embedded font copyright' or similar phrases, but you don't have to browse through many of them to see that adding the ability to embed fonts is not as simple as it might seem.

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Serif implemeted this in its Plus line. They know how to do it. It isn't about legalities, I suspect it is man-hours and other issues.

The problem is the legalities keep changing. For example, as mentioned in one of the links I posted Adobe's EULA for the Adobe Type Library changed in 2011 due to sub-licensing issues. There is also some concern about violating some provisions of the U.S. DMCA concerning the distribution of software that allows users to circumvent copyright restrictions, which could conceivably prevent Serif from selling Affinity apps in the U.S.

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There is no significant change to the legalities in the USA, anyway. Serif did implement and improve this feature right up until the Plus range ceased production—which was certainly after 2011.

 

And the logic expressed makes no sense. Dave wrote it will be added. What? You think they are going to have the US laws repealled in the intervening time or something?

 

Mike

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There is no significant change to the legalities in the USA, anyway.

Are you a lawyer, or at least aware of the current political situation in the USA? Not just the DMCA but patent & copyright laws are subject to interpretation by the courts, & in the last few years Appeals Court rulings have caused enough reversals, reinterpretations, & changes in scope that nobody is certain which statutes apply to what, or in which jurisdiction(s). Everybody agrees for the need for reforms, but the whole subject has become so mired in politics that little if anything gets done about it.

 

This is not just about what Serif knows how to do, or even the differences in the code base between the Serif & Affinity software products. It is also about protecting the company from litigation by anybody who thinks they can benefit by threatening legal action. Every company with enough assets to make them a target has to consider that. It is not limited to any one company.

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Are you a lawyer, or at least aware of the current political situation in the USA? ...

 

Nope...and as goes "awareness", likely no more than you.

 

What are you going to do with Dave's statement? It's gonna be added. Now, I haven't pulled the fonts out of a PDF in some time and have no recollection if the embed flag survives the PDF process or not. Might just do that illegal thing this weekend.

 

But even the conversion to outlines can violate a font's EULA. As can supplying fonts to a print service for the printing of native files. As can, well, other actions.

 

If the AD actually worked properly as regards font substitution when importing a PDF, I could care less about this issue. But it doesn't. That applies to actually changing the font properly as well as tracking, kerning and scaling issues. If one actually has the fonts, then there are not the problems.

 

As well, embedded fonts themselves are not a panacea. Sometimes the encoding is gonna bite one in the butt no matter what. These realities make for editing a PDF (which is not intended for editing anyway) a programmer's nightmare. Glad it isn't me.

 

Good luck obtaining that law license, R C-R.

 

Mike

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What are you going to do with Dave's statement?

 

Dave's statement was, "It won't be for years, I am afraid." That could mean anything in terms of implementation & like all statements about the future it is speculative.

 

In fact, since it was a response to dimitarsp's question about any idea when the feature may be coming, it could simply mean that the decision to support embedded fonts or not is years away.

 

One does not have to be a lawyer to see the inadvisability of reading too much into statements like that one.  ;)

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In fact, since it was a response to dimitarsp's question about any idea when the feature may be coming, it could simply mean that the decision to support embedded fonts or not is years away.

 

In practical terms, it matters not a whit to the end user whether the decision will be years away but the implementation will be swift, or whether the decision will be made soon but the road to implementation will be long and arduous. Either way, we're being told that we should expect to wait a long time for embedded fonts to be interpreted by the Affinity apps.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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I'm afraid Publisher 1.0 will not be better at handling PDF embedded fonts than Designer. Nor will it have passthrough.

 

Then you will not be able to place advert PDFs in layout documents. Unless customers have been specially indoctrined to "convert to curves". 

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I think, it is a difference between placing, displaying, outputting placed PDF documents and integrating them as an editable layout element.

• Missing the first option means for a DTP application to be dead before it even begins to live. But I think, this wasn't meant by Dave.

• Missing the second option would be quite normal.

• Including the first option without respecting embedded font would be more, than one could expect. Even the developer of the PDF format, Adobe, doesn't allow to edit a PDF with its embeddded fonts, if they aren't installed on your machine.

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  • 7 months later...

+1 from me. It would be really nice to have the feature to import the PDF with the embedded fonts. I work with a project that involves notation in PDF-files and these are always embedded custom fonts. Currently all I get is cryptic symbols (missing fonts) when I import these files for conversion.

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  • 3 months later...
On 7/12/2017 at 1:37 PM, mac_heibu said:

Even the developer of the PDF format, Adobe, doesn't allow to edit a PDF with its embeddded fonts, if they aren't installed on your machine.

I'd challenge that theory with the fact you can with the Pitstop plugin from Enfocus. Assuming the font has been embedded with all the characters you require and not dropped as part of the subsetting process then you can happily edit text in the final output PDF.

Without proper handling of being able to embed a PDF into a document, whilst respecting any embedded fonts, the £49.99 won't be worth the asking price for a 'Publishing' tool. InDesign and QuarkXpress happily handle embedded fonts.

See screenshot of QuarkXpress 2015 and Affinity Designer 1.6.4 << Assuming Affinity 'Publisher' application will have the same importing of PDF's means it will be dead in the water and will limit its uptake in the publishing industry hugely. Small magazine workflows require this functionality for page make up of half/quarter page advertising etc... 

1423357386_Screenshot(1).thumb.png.df1a7d649dddab39ea7f9fe528a18b80.png983275922_Screenshot(3).thumb.png.cb17eb8ba7a544f6ff4075c1962adc22.png

 

Even the free FREE Inkscape can handle embedded fonts in a way that allows placement of existing PDF artwork...

1703262711_Screenshot(4).png.29f4027ba8c8434afdb8f73c8d426e7a.png

 

I still love the Affinity apps though and use them daily!

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25 minutes ago, mmuller said:

Assuming the font has been embedded with all the characters you require and not dropped as part of the subsetting process then you can happily edit text in the final output PDF.

PagePlus, Serif’s own long-established DTP application, has been able to to this ever since it acquired the ability to ‘open’ PDFs for editing. (I say ‘open’ in quotation marks because it actually copies the content into a PagePlus document rather than editing the PDF file directly.)

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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21 minutes ago, mmuller said:

I'd challenge that theory with the fact you can with the Pitstop plugin from Enfocus. Assuming the font has been embedded with all the characters you require and not dropped as part of the subsetting process then you can happily edit text in the final output PDF.

Every font has a license/allowable use specification of some kind, with the exception of what amounts to pirated knock-offs that usually don't even have the same font metrics as the fonts they are intended to replace. Adobe's apps respect the licenses/use terms of fonts that have them, which variously may not allow any embedding at all, allow only embedding the characters used in the document, or allow totally free & unrestricted use.

Regardless of what a third party plugin might allow, it is the license that should be respected.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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