How to embed fonts in a PDF, and check that it worked

Embed fonts at the moment the PDF is made. The program that exports the file is the one holding the font files, and it copies the glyphs it used into the PDF as it writes. Adding a font to a finished PDF is a repair job that needs a tool like Acrobat Pro, and it only works if the font is on the machine doing the repair. Either way, the check is the same: open the file's properties and look at the Fonts list.

How do you embed fonts in a PDF?

You embed fonts by exporting with them, from the app the document was written in. Word, InDesign, LibreOffice and a browser's print-to-PDF all copy the fonts they used into the file when they are allowed to. The settings worth knowing are the ones that stop or force it.

• In Word, File then Options then Save has a box called "Embed fonts in the file". It is the one every guide tells you to tick, and according to answers on Super User and Microsoft's own Q&A it only affects the .docx, not the PDF. Word's PDF export embeds fonts on its own.
• Word's Save As PDF dialog has an Options button with "ISO 19005-1 compliant (PDF/A)". PDF/A is an archival standard that requires every font to be embedded, so ticking it is the way to force the issue.
• The same dialog has "Bitmap text when fonts may not be embedded". If a font's licence forbids embedding, that option turns the text set in it into a picture instead. It looks right and stops being searchable.

Those three settings are attributed, not tested here; this site does not run Word. Everything below about BabaPDF's own tools was checked by reading their output back with pdf.js, the engine Firefox uses to display PDFs.

Why are fonts not embedded in my PDF?

Usually because the program that made the PDF chose to name the font instead of including it. The fourteen standard PDF fonts, Helvetica, Times and Courier among them, are almost never embedded, because the format assumes every viewer can supply them. The other common cause is a font licence that forbids embedding.

This site makes the first kind of PDF and says so. Text to PDF writes in Helvetica, and read back with pdf.js its output reports a font named Helvetica with no font file behind it. Add Watermark, Add Page Numbers, the invisible text layer of OCR PDF and the labels in Measure PDF draw with the same standard fonts. For a page number that is harmless. Why it matters for longer text is the subject of why a PDF looks different on someone else's screen.

How can I embed fonts in an Adobe PDF document?

For a PDF that already exists, Acrobat Pro's Preflight has a fix-up called "Embed missing fonts", reached through the Print Production tools. Adobe documents it; it is not tested here. Whatever tool you use, it can only embed a font file it can find on your computer.

If appearance is all that matters, Flatten PDF in its everything-to-images mode sidesteps the question by turning each page into a picture. The text stops being selectable or searchable, which is the same trade Word's bitmap-text option makes.

Which BabaPDF tools embed fonts?

Three converters do: Word to PDF, Excel to PDF and CSV to PDF. Each of the three embeds a subset of Noto Sans, meaning only the characters the document uses. A one-page Word file came out at 6,890 bytes, while the four Noto Sans files the converter carries come to about 3.4 MB.

Here is the limit nobody advertises. These converters embed Noto Sans, not your font. A test .docx with one line set in Georgia and another in bold Courier New came out with exactly two fonts, Noto Sans Regular and Noto Sans Bold. The bold survived and both typefaces were replaced. The converter reads the text and its structure, never the font files on your computer, so it has nothing else to embed. If the typeface itself matters, export from Word with the settings above.

The bundled font covers Latin, Greek and Cyrillic. Chinese, Japanese and Korean are not in it, so those characters may come out as blank boxes rather than text. The full list of what Word to PDF keeps and drops is in its own guide.

How can I embed custom fonts in a PDF document?

Install the font, use it in the document, and export from that app; custom fonts embed exactly like system ones. What can stop them is the licence. TrueType and OpenType fonts carry an embedding permission set by whoever made them, and an exporter that respects it will refuse, substitute or fall back to bitmap text.

Free fonts under the SIL Open Font License, Noto Sans included, allow embedding. A commercial font that refuses is telling you to check its licence, not to find a cleverer exporter.

How do you check which fonts a PDF uses?

Open the PDF in Acrobat or the free Acrobat Reader, choose File then Properties, and open the Fonts tab. Each font is listed with its status. "Embedded" or "Embedded Subset" means it travelled with the file; a bare name means the viewer will substitute something.

Subset fonts are easy to spot by name, because the PDF format prefixes them with six capital letters and a plus sign. In a file from Word to PDF here, the first font the document uses gets BZZZZZ+ and the second CZZZZZ+, so a typical one lists BZZZZZ+NotoSans-Regular.

Embedding fonts in a PDF: the short version

• Embed at export time, in the app that has the font. Word's PDF/A option forces it.
• Word's "Embed fonts in the file" setting is for the .docx, according to Microsoft's Q&A and Super User answers.
• Fixing a finished PDF takes something like Acrobat Pro's Preflight, and the font must be on your computer.
• Word to PDF, Excel to PDF and CSV to PDF here embed a Noto Sans subset every time, and replace your typeface with it.
• Text to PDF, Add Watermark and Add Page Numbers here name Helvetica and embed nothing. PDF to PDF/A, Merge and Compress do not change that.
• Check any file under File, Properties, Fonts. Look for "Embedded Subset" or a six-letter prefix before the name.