Handling placed PDFs with embedded fonts

[udrabo]

A big problem for me is the fact, that I cannot place PDFs in APub with embedded fonts that are not installed on my computer. Well, I can place them but they don’t look like they should, because the missing fonts were replaced!

In a magazine I have to place a minimum of 70 ads that I get as PDFs from multiple customers. I only have to place them onto my pages within the editorial content. And they have to be ‚as they are‘ when it comes to printing. It’s not possible to tell all the customers: "Please give me all the fonts you have used"!

So please make it possible to use PDFs the common way: Put a PDF on a layout as it is, whether the fonts used in it are installed or not. 

Kindest regards
Udo

[becreart]

I agree! This would make PDF handling in certain situation much easier. On the other hand I like to have to possibility to edit a places PDF as it is handled right now.

So, to have the option to place a PDF as-is or to make it editable would be awesome!

[udrabo]

Thank you for pointing that out, becreart! That’s exactly what I wish to have!

[Distill7]

It's not always possible due to font licenses. A license to use and embed a font in the PDF, allows you to print/read (desktop/eBook license) the file, but not to use it directly. 

A few software dedicated to PDF editing like Acrobat and a couple of 3rd party ones can use the embedded fonts, while others used to design from scratch like Illustrator and Photoshop can't, despite being made by Adobe, the creator of the PDF format itself.

So I don't think they can add this feature because they fall under the 2nd category.

An option to vectorize/create outline for all text when placing a PDF should be sufficient to some extent.

[udrabo]

6 minutes ago, toutou123 said:

It's not always possible due to font licenses. A license to use and embed a font in the PDF, allows you to print/read (desktop/eBook license) the file, but not to use it directly. 

A few software dedicated to PDF editing like Acrobat and a couple of 3rd party ones can use the embedded fonts, while others used to design from scratch like Illustrator and Photoshop can't, despite being made by Adobe, the creator of the PDF format itself.

So I don't think they can add this feature because they fall under the 2nd category.

I agree for editing the PDF: Then the font has to be installed! But placing a PDF ‚as is‘ for later printing is not against licensing conditions! Otherwise QuarkXPress, InDesign and others could not do that.

[Alfred]

8 minutes ago, udrabo said:

But placing a PDF ‚as is‘ for later printing is not against licensing conditions!

It usually isn’t, but it can be, which is why @toutou123 wrote “It's not always possible”. Some fonts only have the ‘Restricted’ flag set, so the more common ‘Preview & Print’ permissions don’t apply.

[Distill7]

13 minutes ago, udrabo said:

I agree for editing the PDF: Then the font has to be installed! But placing a PDF ‚as is‘ for later printing is not against licensing conditions! Otherwise QuarkXPress, InDesign and others could not do that.

 

5 minutes ago, Alfred said:

It usually isn’t, but it can be, which is why @toutou123 wrote “It's not always possible”. Some fonts only have the ‘Restricted’ flag set, so the more common ‘Preview & Print’ permissions don’t apply.

An option to place the PDF as a high-resolution raster and or vectorize all text will provide a more flexible solution.

In the meantime, try using a pdf printer that vectorizes text, or convert it to high-resolution image until we hear a more detailed answer from Serif.

[udrabo]

4 minutes ago, Alfred said:

It usually isn’t, but it can be, which is why @toutou123 wrote “It's not always possible”. Some fonts only have the ‘Restricted’ flag set, so the more common ‘Preview & Print’ permissions don’t apply.

But then it should not be possible to embed such a font with restrictions in the creating app!
If fonts are legally embedded, then one should be able to use them according to the font’s licensing terms.

Do QuarkXPress and InDesign e.g. ignore licensing terms? I can’t believe that. I still think it should be possible to place pdfs as is for printing. 

[Alfred]

6 minutes ago, udrabo said:

But then it should not be possible to embed such a font with restrictions in the creating app!
If fonts are legally embedded, then one should be able to use them according to the font’s licensing terms.

My apologies! I see what you mean now.

6 minutes ago, udrabo said:

Do QuarkXPress and InDesign e.g. ignore licensing terms? I can’t believe that. I still think it should be possible to place pdfs as is for printing. 

It will no doubt be possible eventually, but not until the Affinity apps gain the ability to interpret embedded fonts.

[udrabo]

1 minute ago, Alfred said:

My apologies! I see what you mean now.

It no doubt will be possible eventually, but not until the Affinity apps gain the ability to interpret embedded fonts.

That’s why I posted this suggestion …  
I want to push this topic because it is VERY essential for lots of people.

[benwiggy]

There are two points here:

Firstly, I'm seeing errors in placed PDFs even when I have all the necessary fonts installed. 

Secondly, PDFs can be placed correctly in InDesign, Illustrator, XPress, Apple Pages, MS Word, etc etc, even if the correct fonts are not installed on your system.

 

Affinity's ability to turn PDFs into editable content is welcome, but the ability to place a PDF on a page as an 'image', accurately,  is paramount to a DTP app. 

[udrabo]

2 minutes ago, benwiggy said:

Affinity's ability to turn PDFs into editable content is welcome, but the ability to place a PDF on a page as an 'image', accurately,  is paramount to a DTP app. 

Absolutely!

[muelli75]

In 8 of 10 jobs we have to place PDFs "as they are". If AP didnt get the abilitity to import them as "picture" we cant use AP. :-(

[Fixx]

Placing a PDF as "passthrough" is so normal everyday thing that I thought it certainly is in every PDF code library. Turns out, it is not.

[udrabo]

11 minutes ago, Fixx said:

Placing a PDF as "passthrough" is so normal everyday thing that I thought it certainly is in every PDF code library. Turns out, it is not.

I thought this too. I think it’s caused in the approach of handling pdf as quasi exchange format (You can open PDFs coming from other programs like InDesign).

They should provide both ways: passthrough and editable.

[midsummer]

You would think that preserving the look and content of a PDF file would be the greatest priority for a DTP app... Treating all PDFs as editable files doesn't make any sense whatsoever, preserving the look of the original PDF should be Publisher's default behaviour.

I'm starting to feel that Publisher's beta stage ended a few months too soon. Support for embedded fonts is simply DTP core functionality, I don't really know who Publisher's target customer group is at this point?

[udrabo]

2 minutes ago, midsummer said:

I don't really know who Publisher's target customer group is at this point?

Well, it’s a first release but a proper pdf handling is in a business environment a basic need! 

Nonetheless in total the Affinity Team has done a very good job so far and I hope they realize this topic as substantial for the near future.

[midsummer]

5 minutes ago, udrabo said:

Well, it’s a first release but a proper pdf handling is in a business environment a basic need! 

Nonetheless in total the Affinity Team has done a very good job so far and I hope they realize this topic as substantial for the near future.

As I've said elsewhere on the forum, InDesign's first version was merely promising too – it couldn't really be used for anything much, if I recall correctly. It wasn't until the first big update that it became a proper alternative for real projects.

Publisher is very promising indeed, it's just that I feel that Serif's priorities in development are a bit strange. Core functionality like PDF support should be there from the start, bells and whistles should be sprinkled on top after the basics are there.

If I've understood correctly, the Affinity suite uses a third party library for all PDF operations. If that bit is misbehaving or lacking in features, I'm afraid Serif's chances to fix these things in the near future may be limited?

[MikeW]

8 minutes ago, midsummer said:

...

If I've understood correctly, the Affinity suite uses a third party library for all PDF operations. If that bit is misbehaving or lacking in features, I'm afraid Serif's chances to fix these things in the near future may be limited?

Pass-through will be coming as Serif has stated. As will be the option to convert text runs to curves in imported pdfs.

They are using the same maker's library (PDFLib) that they used for the Plus line of software.

[midsummer]

6 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Pass-through will be coming as Serif has stated. As will be the option to convert text runs to curves in imported pdfs.

They are using the same maker's library (PDFLib) that they used for the Plus line of software.

Thanks for the clarification, Mike. This is good news.

[benwiggy]

 

19 hours ago, midsummer said:

As I've said elsewhere on the forum, InDesign's first version was merely promising too – it couldn't really be used for anything much, if I recall correctly. It wasn't until the first big update that it became a proper alternative for real projects.

I was invited to a pre-release showcase of InDesign, and remember being blown away by what they said it could do, compared to XPress 3.3. Text layers, improved typography, transparency handling, native PDF export -- so many things that would improve our workflow. (Foreign hyphenation at no extra cost!)  I can't remember if the release lived up to it on day 1, though. 

 

19 hours ago, MikeW said:

They are using the same maker's library (PDFLib) that they used for the Plus line of software.

If they already have a PDF rendering library to use, I can't understand why implementing it is such a 'complex problem'. But of course code is never straightforward.

Affinity seems to import EPS and SVG vector files perfectly, outlining the fonts automatically at import. For my needs, that's a workable solution, though not for everyone.

[RM f/g]

I was migrating one of my projects to AfPub but gave up when I found out PDFs aren't placed as an image – as expected.

It looks like benwiggy workaround (thanks) – convert the PDFs to EPS before placing – makes  it possible to use AfPub for this project (with placed ads, like topic starter) anyway.

Still, if I remember correctly, fonts converted to curves/outlines don't print as well (somewhat ‘bolder’) as the glyphs they represent.

[udrabo]

1 minute ago, RM f/g said:

Still, if I remember correctly, fonts converted to curves/outlines don't print as well (somewhat ‘bolder’) as the glyphs they represent.

I think that’s a matter of how accurate the curves are calculated.In a typeface. 

[RM f/g]

4 minutes ago, udrabo said:

I think that’s a matter of how accurate the curves are calculated.In a typeface. 

Possibly. Haven't had to go that way for years.

[udrabo]

1 hour ago, RM f/g said:

Possibly. Haven't had to go that way for years.

Quite sure. I don’t know if I can explain that very well in English. Where in a character of a typeface two lines meet , there is in a good designed typeface an little white space wedge (Don’t know if in English it’s called like that …) The reason is legibility—especially with regard to smaller type sizes. Unfortunately some tools don’t respect these wedges by converting to curves. And that makes the typeface looking like it was bolder.