Font embedding is the inclusion of

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a " sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mo ...

files inside an

electronic document An electronic document is any electronic media content (other than computer programs or system files) that is intended to be used in either an electronic form or as printed output. Originally, any computer data were considered as something inter ...

. Font embedding is controversial because it allows

licensed A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

fonts to be freely distributed.

History

Font embedding has been possible with

Portable Document Format Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating syste ...

(PDF), Microsoft Word for Windows and some other applications for many years.

LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite, a project of The Document Foundation (TDF). It was forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.org, an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice. The LibreOffice suite co ...

supports font embedding since version 4.1 in its

Writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, ...

, Calc and Impress applications.

In word processors

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor, word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other pla ...

for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

has permitted font embedding in some document formats since Word 97 (such as .doc or .rtf). But this feature does not work correctly in some Word versions. LibreOffice supports font embedding since version 4.1. This feature is available for the word processor LibreOffice Writer, the spreadsheet application LibreOffice Calc, and the presentation application LibreOffice Impress. Both

OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...

and

support font embedding in the

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

export feature. Font embedding in word processors is not widely supported nor interoperable. For example, if an RTF file with embedded fonts is opened in other word processor than MS Word, it will usually remove embedded fonts.

On the Web

Currently,

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems (in ...

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current ...

Safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an impor ...

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

and

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, ...

support automatic downloading of fonts used on a website using CSS2 or

CSS3 Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as Scalable Vector Graphics, SVG, MathML or XHTML). CS ...

Controversy

Font embedding is a controversial practice because it allows copyrighted fonts to be freely distributed. The controversy can be mitigated by only embedding the characters required to view the document (''subsetting''). This reduces file size but prohibits adding previously unused characters to the document. Because of the potential for copyright infringement,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

only permits embedded fonts that include

digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted work ...

(DRM) protections. The

Acid3 The Acid3 test is a web test page from the Web Standards Project that checks a web browser's compliance with elements of various web standards, particularly the Document Object Model (DOM) and JavaScript. If the test is successful, the results ...

test requires font embedding with minimal DRM protections.

References

Digital typography {{digital-typography-stub

History

In word processors

On the Web

Controversy

See also

References