Outlining Text in Adobe Acrobat
Okay, this post does not have much to do with typography per se, but we’ve all been (okay, not all of us) in that situation where we need to replace a graphic or make a small change within a PDF or EPS file at the last minute. The deadline is approaching, the printer is waiting, your designer just left for a three-week vacation and took her files with her, or worse, your designer isn’t on vacation, but doesn’t understand what it is you want to begin with. So, you throw up your hands, figure you know enough Illustrator to get yourself into trouble, and decide it would be faster to fix it yourself.
You open the PDF or EPS file in Illustrator, and what do you get?
Adobe Illustrator error: Font Problems
A message saying you don’t have the fonts installed on your computer. Of course! If you proceed by clicking Open, the type with the missing font will be reformatted using a font that you have installed on your system, thereby, undoing your designer’s beautiful typography. Whatever you want to fix isn’t worth that headache.
What you should do instead is open the PDF or EPS file in Adobe Acrobat Professional or Extended and convert the text to outlines.
A few notes before you should consider doing this:
- The text will retain its formatting, but will no longer be editable.
- If the PDF is going online, screen readers for the visually impaired will not be able to read it.
- If the problem you want to fix is textual, you’re screwed. Call your designer who’s on vacation; she’ll need to modify the source file. (You will owe her for the rest of your life.)
This procedure used to be fairly straightforward until Adobe released Acrobat 7 a few years ago. Now, it’s a little tricky. Follow the steps below to convert text to outlines in Acrobat Professional or Extended:
- Open the PDF or EPS file in Acrobat.
(You want to open the file in Acrobat, because Acrobat will display the type correctly, using fonts embedded in the file, even if the fonts are not installed on your computer.) - Click Document, select Watermark, and select Add.
The Add Watermark window opens. - Type a period (or any other character) in the Text text box.
- Drag the Opacity slider to 0%.
- Click OK.
- Click Advanced, select Print Production, and select Flattener Preview.
The Flattener Preview window opens. - Select the Convert All Text to Outlines check box.
- Select the pages you need to convert to text from the Apply to PDF group.
- Click Apply.
- If Acrobat warns you that the operation cannot be undone, click Yes to proceed.
- Click OK to close the Flattener Preview window.
- Click File and select Save As to save your outlined text PDF as a different file from your original.
- Close the file in Acrobat and open it in Illustrator.
You’ll notice that the text displays as it should, because it’s outlined. You can’t edit the text, but at least you can change the graphics to your heart’s content.
Only Adobe could end up with such a crazy state of affairs, where you have to add a watermark before you can convert text to outlines. I would love to hear their rationale for this bizarre decision.
Yeah. 99% of the time, I believe Adobe has top-notch products, but then they go and make something like this so complicated. Actually, the made this complicated on purpose, but I can’t figure out why. In Acrobat 6 Professional, you did not, need to add a watermark in order to create outlined text. Create Text Outlines was a simple menu command.
The only rationale that I can think of is someone complained that schmoes like me were opening PDFs and screwing with their work.
This is a fantastic tip! Just saved my skin. Thanks very much for posting.
I’m glad to hear it! Thank you for letting me know.
Thank you! I would never have guessed right sequence for this. It definitely looks more like easter egg than application feature
It’s a fine method, but if you want to remove the watermark it can be a struggle. An alternative method (assuming you have Illustrator; I tried it in CS4) is to place the PDF in an empty document using File > Place, making sure the “Link” checkbox is selected. Then just select Object > Flatten Transparency, which will offer the option to “Convert All Text to Outlines” and there ya go!
Thanks, Mike! I hadn’t considered placing the PDF into Illustrator as an option. I checked it out in CS5, and it worked like charm.
As for getting rid of the watermark in Acrobat, it’s really a nonissue. I generally just type a period at a small point size and knock its opacity down to zero (steps 3 and 4). An empty path (no stroke, no fill) remains on the page where the period was, but the reader will never know that it’s there. Leaving a stray path behind isn’t a very clean solution, but it works in a pinch.
Thank you so much for this tip. I wasted an hour searching adobe forums for a solution, but their response is “You don’t ever NEED to outline fonts.” Creative Suite gets more complicated and less useful with every new release. I never used to cringe when I thought about upgrading. Thanks again. Now I can get back to work!