I have a tool that generates some Type3 fonts on the fly which I'm
currently embedding into the resulting pdf file. However, since so many
pdf files use the same font I'd like the font definitions to be in an 
external file that I could reference from the pdf. 

Is this possible and could sometime provide an outline as to how this
would work. The docs aren't so clear on how external files get utilized.

   

unknown <unknown@slash.org> wrote:

>I have a tool that generates some Type3 fonts on the fly which I'm
>currently embedding into the resulting pdf file. However, since so many
>pdf files use the same font I'd like the font definitions to be in an 
>external file that I could reference from the pdf. 
>
>Is this possible and could sometime provide an outline as to how this
>would work. The docs aren't so clear on how external files get utilized.

External files probably aren't viable because support for them is
patchy.

But external files are simply an alternate source for a stream. This
would (in an ideal world) be useful for, for example, large images,
since they are a single stream.  For type 1 fonts too, since the font
itself is a large single stream. Type 3 fonts are a large number of
objects, so this is unlikely to help.

My recommendation would be to convert to type 1 or TrueType fonts. Not
only are they typically smaller and more efficient, Acrobat recognises
and merges duplicates when you combine PDFs (make sure that all fonts
with the same name are absolutely identical!)
----------------------------------------
Aandi Inston  quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
Please support usenet! Post replies and follow-ups, don't e-mail them.

So its not possible to include an external file that has multiple objects
defined? I guess dealing with object ids would be a huge problem. PDF
needs some kind of scoping feature to resolve these kind of things. I'll
have to look on how difficult it will be to go from Type3 to Type1 fonts.

  thanx!


On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 10:22:59 +0000, Aandi Inston wrote:

> unknown <unknown@slash.org> wrote:
> xternal files probably aren't viable because support for them is
> patchy.
> 
> But external files are simply an alternate source for a stream. This
> would (in an ideal world) be useful for, for example, large images,
> since they are a single stream.  For type 1 fonts too, since the font
> itself is a large single stream. Type 3 fonts are a large number of
> objects, so this is unlikely to help.
> 
> My recommendation would be to convert to type 1 or TrueType fonts. Not
> only are they typically smaller and more efficient, Acrobat recognises
> and merges duplicates when you combine PDFs (make sure that all fonts
> with the same name are absolutely identical!)

unknown <unknown@slash.org> wrote:

>So its not possible to include an external file that has multiple objects
>defined? I guess dealing with object ids would be a huge problem. PDF
>needs some kind of scoping feature to resolve these kind of things

Actually, as someone who writes software that has to read the things,
I'm rather glad it doesn't...

The original aim of PDF was that things were awkward for producers
rather than consumers. This aim has, however, long since been lost.
----------------------------------------
Aandi Inston  quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
Please support usenet! Post replies and follow-ups, don't e-mail them.