The solution to document portability

If you're a regular user of computers, you're probably familiar with the following frustration: occasionally when you open a document created on a different computer, you find that the formatting is all messed up and that the fonts have changed.

The most common cause of this problem is that the document was created using fonts that are not present on your computer. There are several solutions to this problem.

When creating documents you could stick with the Arial and Times New Roman fonts that are supplied with every copy of Windows. However, this would make for very dull documents.

Copying the fonts you use onto a disk or network server and giving them to all the people who might want to read or print your document, isn't a good idea. Aside from the logistical problems this would cause, this action would almost certainly be illegal. Fonts are software products in their own right, and are protected by international copyright law as well as individual license agreements. Even redistributing so-called 'freeware' or 'public domain' fonts is problematic. Unless you created the fonts yourself from scratch you can never be sure that the public domain fonts you redistribute are not derived from someone else's fonts.

Many applications include font substitution features that choose the closest possible match if the specified font is not installed.

Several Microsoft products support font substitution and also include TrueType font embedding technology. As the name suggests this technology lets you 'embed' the fonts that you've used within the document file itself.

Taking advantage of the technology

Several applications support TrueType font embedding. Consult your user manuals or help files for details. The following description and screen capture is taken from Microsoft Word 97.

To save a document with the fonts embedded, select 'Save As...' from Word's 'File' menu, then select 'Options...' to access the dialog box shown below.

Figure 1. Word 97, File save options.

Reducing document file sizes

The latest Microsoft products that include TrueType embedding use MicroType Express, a lossless font compression technology licensed from Agfa, to reduce the size of document files. For more details see Agfa's press release on this subject.

At the document author's discretion other techniques may be employed to reduce file sizes. By default, all available font styles; regular, bold, italic and bold-italic of any typeface used are embedded within the Word file. This ensures that the document can be edited if loaded onto another computer. Unfortunately, this makes the file far larger than is necessary if it only needs to be viewed or printed and not edited.

The new option 'Embed characters in use only' forces Word to embed only the font styles used, so if the 'bold' style isn't used in a document it will not be embedded. Furthermore, if you use fewer than 32 characters from any given font, for example a headline font, only the used characters are embedded. This option is most useful for documents that will not require editing by the recipient. Attempts to edit the document will be restricted because characters taken from a default font will be used to replace those missing from the embedded font.

Typical file size reductions

As a test, we created a document containing a short two word headline (10 unique characters) and one hundred words of continuous text (using most upper and lower case characters). The headline was set in Antique Olive Bold, and the body text set in Century Schoolbook. The following file sizes were reported:

• 19.5KB - the file saved from Word 97 without TrueType embedding enabled.
• 464KB - the file saved from Word 95 with TrueType embedding enabled. This file contains embedded versions of the regular, bold and italic styles of Century Schoolbook and the regular, bold, italic and bold-italic styles of Antique Olive.
• 181KB - the file saved from Word 97 with TrueType embedding enabled. The file contains the same fonts as the previous file, however, Word 97 uses Agfa's MicroType Express compression system to reduce the size of the file.
• 48.5KB - the file saved from Word 97 with TrueType embedding enabled and the 'embed only used characters' option enabled. The file only contains the 10 used characters from Antique Olive bold and all of Century Schoolbook regular.

Checking the embedding level of your fonts

On your computer's hard disk your TrueType font files all look the same. However, type designers and foundries are able to decide how their fonts are embedded within your documents. They can even decide not to allow embedding.

If you attempt to embed fonts into a document that have been set to 'no embedding' then they will not be included. So to save time it might be worth choosing fonts that allow embedding before starting work on a document.

The easiest way to check the embedding-level of a font is to use Microsoft's free font properties extension for Windows 95 and Windows NT. When this Windows utility is downloaded and installed, you'll be presented with lots of information about any font you 'right click' on.

Figure 2. Font properties extension, Embedding Information.

As can be seen from the illustration, the extension tells you the embedding level of the font you've accessed and describes each of the four possible levels.

Ask about embedding levels when you buy new fonts

Most foundries and type designers set the embedding level of their fonts to Editable embedding allowed or Print & Preview embedding allowed. However, a few foundries set the embedding level to No embedding allowed. If you feel that embedding technology has a place within your organization, be sure to ask the type vendor about it before you part with any money.