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Supplied PDF's with embedded fonts


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Hi

As the title, I have a question regarding, 'supplied PDF's with embedded fonts'. Is Affinity Publisher likely be able to handle the embedded fonts in future? I am trying to get my clients to convert all their fonts to curves, but, you know some, they just don't get this (it's hard enough getting them to add bleed and trim). So I'm having to convert to JPEG myself using Preview on iMac. Seems to be okay.

Thanks

Andy

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2 minutes ago, abfdesign said:

Is Affinity Publisher likely be able to handle the embedded fonts in future?

I think Serif will be severely limiting the potential user base if such a capability isn’t added to Affinity Publisher. Designer and Photo need it too.

Alfred spacer.png
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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On 5/24/2019 at 12:32 PM, Alfred said:

I think Serif will be severely limiting the potential user base if such a capability isn’t added to Affinity Publisher. Designer and Photo need it too.

Well, not me! I'm loving Serif. I'd marry them if I could... Although, my wife my have something to say about that!!

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1 hour ago, MEB said:

(...) at some point.

Until then: How about enabling correct PDF appearance "as is" – unless a PDF will get opened in AfPub.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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12 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Until then: How about enabling correct PDF appearance "as is" – unless a PDF will get opened in AfPub.

8 minutes ago, MEB said:

Embedded fonts support is also needed to display the PDF as is (without the fonts installed).

And before the question is asked, embedded font support is needed for a option to convert text to curves upon importing. 

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23 minutes ago, MEB said:

Embedded fonts support is also needed to display the PDF as is (without the fonts installed).

Oh, I had different understanding of "embedded font support" since it already works like a charm on export.
That made me think it is no technical issue to activate it vice versa, which would not happen yet because of legal matters for EDIT a pdf.

Now I wonder, do any applications which show PDF fonts correctly support embedded font in that same way and therefore could possibly enable edit PDF? There is no preview at all inside pdf which could be shown on canvas? (and ignored on print/export by sending pdf's original data instead?).

 

 

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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17 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Oh, I had different understanding of "embedded font support" since it already works like a charm on export.
That made me think it is no technical issue to activate it vice versa, which would not happen yet because of legal matters for EDIT a pdf.

Export is different than the display of a pdf as a non-editable object and then having that pdf passed on without screwing up the fonts used. That requires rendering the fonts as-is, which requires embedded font support. It's called pdf passthrough. It's not a legal issue.

18 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Now I wonder, do any applications which show PDF fonts correctly support embedded font in that same way and therefore could possibly enable edit PDF? There is no preview at all inside pdf which could be shown on canvas? (and ignored on print/export by sending pdf's original data instead?).

I am unclear on the first sentence I bolded. Are there applications that can open a PDF for editing and use the embedded fonts? Yes, several. Are there applications that can place a pdf and pass-through a pdf virtually untouched? Yes, seveal. And there are several applications that can convert a PDF to editable objects but require the fonts used like the present Affinity applications.

There is no real embedded preview inside a PDF other than page thumbnails (if the pdf creating application included them).

Mike

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56 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Export is different than the display (...) which requires embedded font support. (...) It's called pdf passthrough. It's not a legal issue.

(...) Are there applications that can place a pdf and pass-through a pdf virtually untouched? Yes, seveal.

This answered my questions, thank you. I had assumed that exporting requires mostly same font rendering code as displaying a PDF, – simply in kind of different direction. Like "reading from screen and writing to file (pdf)" <–> "reading from file and writing to screen".

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 months later...

I really want to use Affinity Publisher to put the final touches on sheet music scores, but it's pretty much impossible to use for that until this feature is added. For the value, I know a lot of others who would switch from their current solutions when this becomes available. 

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On Mac, this tool can be used to outline all the fonts in a PDF.

https://pages.uoregon.edu/noeckel/computernotes/FontBegone/

It uses Ghostscript to achieve the conversion. It can be done via the command line as well as long as Ghostscript v9.15 or higher is used. I use PhotoLine to do this, because with GS installed it will import PDF files with fonts as outlines, if required.

But it is of course also possible to use the command line and the GhostScript command on either Windows or Mac to do this.

See for more information:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28797418/replace-all-font-glyphs-in-a-pdf-by-converting-them-to-outline-shapes

 

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  • 1 month later...

I still can't use the Affinity suite in my studio for this very reason. I keep checking back hoping there will be some hint that it will be added and with MEB confirming it will be added at some point makes me happy but its a bit sad that its wasn't included initially as without it most professionals simply can't use Publisher. I know quite a lot of professional designers that were very keen on Affinity suite but have now given up waiting and stayed with Adobe and they have now lost all interest in Affinity. Words used are "its too much messing around to change now, even if it works". Im still hoping to include it. 

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Much as I like the Affinity apps I am getting quite depressed about the number of things which are widely requested (or just need fixing) that have been hanging around for years!
Yes, I know that Serif is a small company. Yes, I know that what is important to some people, isn't to everyone. yes, I know other apps took years to include some features we now take for granted.


The problem is that I need to get work done now, and constantly having to use other apps for some fairly basic functions does get a little irritating after a while!


My own feeling is that Serif are holding back on some of these much requested improvements so that they can add them to the "2" release (whenever that will be) to justify charging for it. After all, if everything users need was included in the current apps, there would be no incentive to buy the next versions. :ph34r:

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

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1 hour ago, PaulEC said:

My own feeling is that Serif are holding back on some of these much requested improvements so that they can add them to the "2" release (whenever that will be) to justify charging for it. After all, if everything users need was included in the current apps, there would be no incentive to buy the next versions. :ph34r:

Thats a fair point and you can't knock Affinity team for that. There needs to be some incentive to upgrade. However what is happening in my experience is some of these oft requested features that are in most professional environments essential and will not, or have not so far, been included, are eroding peoples interest in Affinity as they originally wanted to leave Adobe's money grabbing and bloated software at all costs, found they couldn't and now are slowly just accepting paying the instalments of a CC subscription so its going to be harder for Affinity to win more customers the longer the features are spread out. Thats my opinion anyhoo.

Im still holding out but can't forever as when hardware slowly gets upgraded for various reasons and it comes with the latest this and that it will unfortunately mean more subscriptions to the latest Adobe CC. Im trying desperately to hold onto Adobe CS6 so I'm not locked into the subscription if and when Affinity comes of age. If I end up all in with Adobe CC then it will be difficult to jump ship afterwards after my staff all get used to the setup.

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