FONTS

Fonts are the cause of some of the most persistent problems in imaging electronic files. The fonts used to output your files at Webcom must be of the same version, name and manufacturer as you used to create them. While it is Webcom’s responsibility to maintain licensed versions of the fonts used in our production processes, please remember that your job cannot move through the manufacturing process unless you have included all of the fonts used in the creation of your document.

INCLUDING FONTS WITH ELECTRONIC JOBS

When you send your book files to Webcom for printing, it’s important to follow these guidelines for including the electronic fonts with your job:

In applications, always use the actual stylized typeface. Avoid the use of style attributes such as bold, italic, bold italic, outline and shadow from the measurements palette. Some applications will attempt to simulate the requested style but the results are usually poor. More often than not, if there is no corresponding printer font available for the style you’ve chosen, the computer will ignore the command and use the printer font for the non-stylized version. On the Mac OSX avoid using fonts ending with .dfont as these fonts are system fonts and can cause conflicts when we use them to process your files.

Send all the fonts used in the document. If you’re not using specific preflighting software, often your page layout software can give you information about the fonts used. In QuarkXPress, try the Font Usage menu. In PageMaker^® 6.5, use the Save for Service Provider plug-in for built-in preflighting. On the Mac, sending fonts usually means that you must include both a copy of the bitmap screen font (the font suitcase) and the printer fonts for each style instance. On the PC, send files ending in .TTF for TrueType fonts, and for PostScript fonts send both .PFM and .PFB files.

 Use a unique naming structure when creating custom fonts. If you elect to create your own custom design typefaces with a program such as Fontographer^®, make sure that you have assigned a unique name both to the screen and the printer version of the font to avoid conflict with industry standard names. Unless your last name is Garamond, using your own name to identify the font is a safe way to avoid conflicts.

Please refer to the step-by-step instructions here for sending fonts from your specific platform and system.

FONTS IN PDF FILES

The PDF file format has eliminated many of the problems associated with the transfer of files from customer to supplier but font issues persist. In order for us to process a PDF file successfully all fonts must be embedded before the files are sent to us. Unlike PostScript files, where fonts can be embedded by making the fonts available to Acrobat Distiller, we don't have the same flexibility with PDF files. Please click here for instructions on generating PDF files for printing.

Fonts used to output your files at Webcom must be of the same version, name and manufacturer as you used to create them.

Avoid the use of style attributes such as bold, italic, bold italic, outline and shadow.

For your convenience we’ve included step-by-step instructions in Appendix 1, so you can quickly run through the requirements for sending fonts from your specific platform and system.