InDesign CS 4 and Arial Narrow...

[Ray Johnson]

I'm on Windows 7, and having an issue with Arial Narrow.

Here is the problem...

I get a message that the font can't be found when I import a PDF file the uses Arial
Narrow Bold. I have tens of thousands of pages of PDF's like this that do not have
the font embedded.

ID CS2 does not give me this message.

ID CS2 is a bit slow on Windows 7, and I'd like to use ID CS4 instead. The missing font message is a big issue as it warns for each page. I don't want to hit OK 4000 times when importing a PDF file.

Note: In ID CS4, Arial Narrow is present, and I can set type with it.

Note 2: If I open a CS2 file that already has the PDF files placed, I get no warnings.

Note 3: I use a script to import multi-page PDF files, but it also gets the same message when placing a single PDF page.

Does anyone have any idea's of how to get my import to no report font errors?

[Lukas Engqvist]

You can refry the PDF. Open it and save it as Postscript file embedding refrenced fonts (provided you have the font on your system) and then distill the PDF. That way you will get the font embedded.

[Ray Johnson]

That would take way too long. Last time I processed, I had 120,312 pages of PDF supplied to me with no fonts embedded.

Why did ID CS2 not warn, and ID CS4 warns?

[rich apollo]

CS2 didn't check when you imported. It would warn you upon trying to output.

With PitStop you can set up an Action to replace, and embed, that font with the one on your system.

To avoid hitting return 4000 times when importing the PDF, you could preflight the files in Acrobat when you receive them. Part of your Preflight should check the fonts.

[Ray Johnson]

The customer generates in the above example, 60,156 2 page PDF files.

They make the PDF files without fonts by design, as including the fonts in 60,156 PDF files
would over double the size of the files they us, and take them over twice as long to generate.

I have the fonts installed, so that's not the problem, as I can print just fine.

[Lukas Engqvist]

So I think you have to choose. Either impose in an imposition software that will ignore that the font is missing, or include the font even if it means longer PDF creation and bigger files, because embedding is the standard way of doing things. You can't have a program that checks against problems (what if another job doesn't have an embedded fornt that you don't have in your rip?) and send it files that you have found you want to handle a different way. Standardisation and safety come at a price. Are you willing to pay the price... or risk using your exception as standard? Then you need to find a software that will bypass that standard.

[Ray Johnson]

This leads me to the last issue.

I have no control over the creation of the PDF files by the customer.

I have to take what I'm given and make them work, and I have to do it quickly.

Plus on another note: CS4 seems to only be able to batch import about 400 pages
with the import script, this also seems odd since ID CS2 could import 900 at once.

[pcmodem]

Why are you wanting to import the PDF's into InDesign anyway?

[Ray Johnson]

We need to process the PDF files do do multiple things.

We overlay a logo, the customer can not add it, the system they use does not
have that ability.

We have to convert black ovals of a certain size and shape to be a spot color.
Again, the customer can't do this.

Placing into InDesign allows me to add the logo, and then output consistent device
independent PostScritpt Level 2 Ascii files that I filter to convert the ovals.

I deal with InDesign files that have 2000 to 4000 pages.

Printing from Acrobat doesn't work well, as the Windows Print driver gets in the way,
and causes issues when trying to write filtering software.

[Lukas Engqvist]

It seems like a classic situation where somone needs to do alot of work because a sales rep will just stand and nod at the customer rather than look at the whole situation. So much attention to solving each step and not looking in the whole. Overlaying a logo can be done in Acrobat, using the watermark feature, or even pitstop (or similar) I am sure you could set a pitstop server to do it automatically.
You are patching a new old garment with a new patch... it will tear. The project sounds like it should be looked at from the whole and you need braver decission makers.