Embedding permissions settings

André G. Isaak
André G. Isaak Posts: 636
in Font Technology
When setting the .pdf embedding rights for a font, you’re given the option to allow or disallow subsetting.

I’m just curious here — I can understand why someone might want to disallow embedding altogether, but I can’t think of why anyone would want to disallow subsetting. What would the reason for this be?

Comments

  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,954
    I think Microsoft was interested in allowing the embedding party to ensure that the font could be used for future editing, if desired.

    Of course, most foundries would be much more interested in REQUIRING subsetting rather than allowing/disallowing!
  • Peter Constable
    Peter Constable Posts: 227
    A flag that requires subsetting probably wouldn't work in practice since there's no clear definition of "subset" that would be useful to require.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,954
    I think “subset to only the glyphs used in the document” would be the obvious meaning.

    This would not play very well with editable embedding.

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