What is identity H?

This isn't specifically an XX problem as the same thing happens in other programs, but I'd be very interested if the experts on this forum have the answer.
If I create a document in XX using, say, Arial or Times New Roman and then export it as a PDF everything seems fine.

When I open the file in Acrobat and use the touch-up text tool I'm told the font isn't available and has to be substituted, and sure enough, after using the tool an extra font pops up in the used fonts dialog.

Attached are the dialog boxes,

Any explanation gratefully received,

Tony

A little google :)
http://forums.macnn.com/100/software...font-identity/

Hans

Or HERE

Thank you both for the leads:

"The Identity H encoding, or what is otherwise known as either CID-encoding or double-byte font encoding, appears in Adobe Acrobat when a PDF file is created from some vector based programs (ie. Adobe In-Design, Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Macromedia Freehand, etc.). This condition can cause problems during the printing process and may delay the completion of a job. To avoid such complications any Acrobat / PDF file must be free of Identity H encoding. This problem may be avoided by converting any text to outlines.

Looks like you're better off printing the document to a postscript file and then using distiller to convert it to PDF."

If I interpret this correctly, then the "problem" lies with the vector based programs (including XX) but is only a problem with old RIP printers. What do other XX users do, convert their files or ignore the problem?

Tony

Why not just convert all your text to shapes and export to pdf?

Or find out what text is using ArialMT, and change it to another similar font that isn't Identity H encoded?

The most funny thing is when I tried to export PDF from Xara (still have 3.2) with portion of text using Arial Rounded MT, I saw the Identity-H encoding in Acrobat.

When I did the same from AI (have CS3), I saw standard ANSI encoding in Acrobat )).

I noticed a long time ago, that Xara handles fonts in some interesting own way ) Fonts, that Xara is warning about embedding while exporting to PDF, are very good embedded from AI etc...

So if you have to have editable fonts in PDF:
1. Distill from Xara and make PDF with Acrobat )
2. Use other fonts which are good when exporting from Xara )
3. Export from Xara as is, open in AI and just resave as PDF again )

P.S. As was mentioned, it doesn't happen with Xara only -- the most of other programs treat fonts that way. I hope when PDF format will be opened for developers, things with fonts would be changed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

Why not just convert all your text to shapes and export to pdf?

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Thank you Egg. The problem for me with this method is (I am assuming) that the text in the XX file is then no longer editable, and the text in the final PDF is no longer searchable. For a poster this wouldn't matter, however it would for a multipage document.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by alexbozhenov

So if you have to have editable fonts in PDF:
1. Distill from Xara and make PDF with Acrobat )
2. Use other fonts which are good when exporting from Xara )
3. Export from Xara as is, open in AI and just resave as PDF again )

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Thank you for these suggestions. As the problem seems to involve most of the common fonts, and I don't always have the choice to myself, I'll avoid solution 2 but I'll investigate both the other two.

Tony,

I see your issue re searching. It must be text if you want this feature.

Quote:

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The problem for me with this method is (I am assuming) that the text in the XX file is then no longer editable,

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You've got 2 options:
Save the file, convert the text to shapes, export to PDF, undo text to shapes and save.
In the export dialogue window, there's a Convert Text to Shapes tick box.

One of the other problems with converting text to shapes is the "text" doesn't anti-alias so it can look odd at 100% viewing although it prints fine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tonylondon

Thank you for these suggestions. As the problem seems to involve many of the common fonts, and I don't always have the choice to myself, I'll avoid solution 2 but I'll investigate both the other two.

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I created a paragraph of text in four different fonts: Arial, Calibri, Lucida sans and Tahoma. Using the straight export from XX to PDF rendered all the fonts as identity-H. Using Print to PDF gave ansi coding for Arial, Lucida sans and tahoma and both ansi and identity-H for Calibri. Exporting from XX as AI/EPS and reading into AI created additional problems as Arial was interpreted as Helvetica, which I don't have on my computer. Saving or printing to PDF gave a mixture of identities: ansi, custom, identity-H and Roman, although Arial was reinstated.

So print to PDF seems the best option, with Egg's alternative for a back-up if a printer should complain

Thanks again to both of you for your suggestions,