Re: RE : [tdf-discuss] Re: Feature request - embed font

On 03/21/2011 11:44 PM, Steve Edmonds wrote:

> As pointed out, it may not be possible to package fonts in the document
> file because of the Open Document standard, although I would have though
> it would have been flexible enough to enable packaging of future items,
> otherwise it would be limiting to development and future inclusion of
> say media or as of yet unpopularised formats.

Fonts used for editing documents must be installed at operating system 
level (Windows, MacOS, Linux) and therefore they would not be available 
even if embedded in documents. In addition fonts have different metrics 
on different operating systems.

This is the reason why fonts have never been embedded in any document 
format for editing (not even in old Microsoft proprietary formats, even 
if they were a memory dump), because if they are not installed there is 
no chance of having them available for editing.

Font embedding in PDF is a completely different story. PDF is a document 
description format based on PostScript, and thus the engine in the 
software can use the embedded fonts to render them on screen thanks to 
the code developed by John Warnock (a genius developer, the inventor of 
PostScript and one of the founders of Adobe).

This feature was introduced in PDF 2.0, because the first version was 
using Minion and Myriad, specific fonts with real time variable metrics 
which had to be installed at system level in order to mimic the fonts 
used to produce the document.

I was working as a consultant for Adobe at that time, and I have been 
the PDF spokeperson for Europe for several years.

It is true that many years have gone by, but fonts are handled by 
operating systems in the same way. If they are not installed in their 
specific folder at boot time, they cannot be used for editing documents.

I hope this helps.

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Italo Vignoli
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