Does Acrobat 6 have font Fonts Rights Management limitations that previous versions of Acrobat did n

[Robert...@adobeforums.com]

I have a problem for which I don't know the solution. I created CD Labels, for a customer, with Adobe InDesign 2.0.2 under Jaguar and created PDFs of the CD labels with Acrobat Distller 5, in Press Mode with All fonts included and Subsets turned off. My customer was able to open these PDFs in Acrobat 5, under Windows 2000 Professional, and edit the text even though he did not have the imbedded fonts installed on his system.

Now that he has upgraded to Windows XP Professional and Acrobat 6.0.1 he no longer can edit my PDFs even though I distilled them with All fonts included and Subsets turned off. When he tries to edit my PDFs he receives and error message which says, " TouchUp: All or part of the selection has no available system font. You cannot add or delete text using the currently selected font."

Does Acrobat 6 have Fonts Rights Management limitations that previous versions of Acrobat did not have -- meaning the Windows XP user of Acrobat 6.1 has to have the same font installed in his system to be able to edit my PDF even though I distilled it in Distiller 5, with All fonts included and subsets turned off? Or, it this simply a technical glitch that can be resolved with helpful advise?

[Aandi_...@adobeforums.com]

Acrobat 6 closes some loopholes in Acrobat 5. The intention is, and
always has been, that to edit text in a font you need to own your own
copy.

Aandi Inston

[Robert...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Aandi,

With your response and with Jon Bessant pretty much agreeing with you, when I posted this same question in the Acrobat for Macintosh Forum, I feel I now have the skinny on this new limitation and I believe I don't need to call Adobe Technical Support to verify it.

I'm disappointed that this new limitation is built into the latest revision of Acrobat. Now the ability of Acrobat's cross platform compatibly is reduced if I create a PDF with imbedded Bitstream Mac fonts, I am doubtful that a Windows installation of Acrobat 6.1 will accept a Windows version of the same Bitstream font for editing the same PDF.

Embedding all fonts with no subsets, in an Acrobat PDF, provided a nice way to allow a registered Acrobat user on a different platform to Edit in my font selections without going through the hassle of matching up my font installation on his installed platform and opening up a nightmare of hit and miss attempts to match fonts that Acrobat will accept.

When I share an Acrobat PDF file, with embedded fonts, I'm not distributing fonts to another user for system installation, I am sharing a document that I created with fonts that I own and those fonts are only viable and useful in the shared document and not on the user's installed system.

I understand the need to clamp down on font piracy but I liked Adobe's former liberal philosophy about Embedding Fonts for Editing in Acrobat Version 5. Now my customer's reward for moving up to Acrobat 6 is loosing that ability.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

Robert Scott
Registered user of Acrobat 4, 5, and Acrobat 6 Professional for Mac OS

[K_Ri...@adobeforums.com]

It would not be improper to embed fonts that are licensed for editable embedding in my view. While one could I suppose construct an argument that the right to embed for editable embedding is a right assigned only to the font licensee (which is what a claimed restriction on the meaning of embedding "editable embedding allowed" fonts implies) it makes no sense that this was the historical import of the editable embed permission in a font license, since by definition the font licensee has the right to use the font to begin with.

But of course one could argue that there is a precedent here, in that a font is licensed to be on the PC for printing purposes with another permission included for "download" to a printer. If one follows such thinking then a font that is licensed for editable embedding might imply that only the licensee may embed for his or her own use so-licensed fonts for embedded licensing use, and that no right to use such an editably-embedded font extends to non-licensees. I don't personally feel that this is what was what the term "editable embedding" meant originally, however, as it implies a worthless right. When would anyone need to embed a font they already own a license to if they just want to edit in place on the same PC?

Therefore the term implied a distributione and end use right. But of course thus is a question for copyright lawyers if applied in practice. Can we or can't we? Only our lawyers can answer that with respect to each application.

Apart from this quibble, it would certainly be an overstep to restrict the editable embedding of a font that was originally licensed for installable embedding, as some, though very few, fonts are.

I think there is a need for a comprehensive consumer guide to fonts that remain useable at all in practice considering the narrowing applicability of PDF in this context. If there are limitations in Acrobat, it would be nice to see these spelled out in detail so as to avoid the time and bother of figuring out each limitation.

Getting back to the font limitations, it would really help if there were also a cross-vendor master list of fonts that could be given to clients or end users so that they know which fonts can travel where and how. Documents could then be purpose-built so that the workflow is not impeded when a rights-management snag is encountered.

[William_...@adobeforums.com]

Such a list would be giagantic. There are hundreds or possibly thousands of fonts available. For someone to make a list available free would be like throwing away many $$ of their time. From the point of view of font use for viewing versus editing, put yourself in the shoes of someone who spent hours creating a font set. That might make you have a different viewpoint when folks are ripping off your work. I understand your viewpoint, but sometimes such things just cost money to compensate folks for their work. It is amazing how much is available free on the internet, even the net itself in some sense.

[de_...@adobeforums.com]

Acrobat 5 didn't allow you to edit embedded fotns either, it would unembed the first. Acrobat 6 doesn't do this.

In theory you can use Acrobat 6 pro pdf optimizer to unembed the fonts, then under document make sure use local fonts is selected and then try to edit the font, although this didn't work for me. Still worth a shot.

[Robert...@adobeforums.com]

My customer who is editing the PDFs I deliver to him as a final product is a payed consultant helping nonprofit organizations with the business side of their operations. He also provides policy and procedure advise to non-profits to help them avoid litigation vulnerability.

In the spirit of his profession, I think he will feel motivated to move in the direction that the industry is going as far as font rights restrictions. I predict he will want to stay in Acrobat 6, not going back to Acrobat 5, and then make sure that the editable portions of the PDFs I provide him are created with Fonts that are available for Windows and Mac and prove to work smoothly with Acrobat on both platforms.

[K_Ri...@adobeforums.com]

But of course many of us have upgraded from v4 direct to v6, so 5's limits are somewhat moot.

At least the full Acrobat program is not so harsh as one of its competitor's products, which claims to "embed" fonts but which strips out all but Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier New.

Still, from the standpoint of planning workflows all this does imply a need for a defined list of what works and what does not work in font list terms. Othwerwise one is doomed to a time-consumming process of vetting the client's font library to see if the client has the fonts and one also has the same fonts.

This is an opportunity cost that will have to be factored in when dealing with PDF over time; it means in practice that it is not necessaril a no-brainer to choose PDF for document archiving when aditional font lic ense costs are implied over time for anyone using PDF to publish, e-communicate or to archive. A straight scan-to-Tiff file model might be more cost-effective as it eliminate the need to license fonts.