Another question about fonts

[sananda]

if i use certain fonts in a word or pages document that are not by default supplied with a windows computer, will the fonts i use be correctly displayed on a windows machine?

 

[CanadaRAM]

No.

Unless you save the file as a PDF file with the fonts embedded.

 

[sananda]

No.

Unless you save the file as a PDF file with the fonts embedded.

i assumed that it wouldn't be possible. i did a little test and emailed a document with text in myriad pro to a friend with a windows machine. he opened it in word and tells me that word said it was myriad pro. i was surprised word was identifying it as my friend doesn't have that font. i have no idea if his computer was actually correctly displaying myriad pro.

but he does have myriad web pro, so i thought i would test another font not in the myriad group. i emailed a document with helvetica (which he also does not have) again, word identified the text as helvetica.

so i'm confused.

 

[mkrishnan]

Well...Word knows what the font is *supposed* to be. If it didn't, it wouldn't be able to display the font even if it had it! I think that what happens is, Word preserves that the font in the file is one other than anything it has, but then it font substitutes with something it does have. So the end effect is that the file looks wrong on that computer, but if one just edits some text and e-mails it back, I think the process allows the file to come back and still be in the originally defined font on the original computer. Whereas if the font substitution were destructive, when you got the file back, your Word would think the file was in his/her font.

Does that make any sense?

 

[sananda]

yes, that does make sense.

so i think i can produce my documents in any font that pleases me. if i want to send the document by email, i should (as canadaram suggests) sent it as a pdf to preserve it. if someone can't read pfd (or needs to edit the doc) i can send them the document as a word file. they will be able to read it and amend but it will have a subsitute font at their end.