PDF Font Embedder

This repository contains two bash scripts, fontcheck and fontembed, that can be used to check for embedded fonts in a PDF file and to embed fonts if they are not already embedded. These scripts are particularly useful for ensuring that all fonts are embedded in your manuscript before submitting it to conferences and journals.

Prerequisites

Before using these scripts, you need to install the following tools on your macOS system:

• poppler or xpdf for checking fonts in PDF files.
• ghostscript for embedding fonts in PDF files.

You can install these tools using Homebrew:

brew install poppler
brew install ghostscript

Installation

1. Clone this repository to your local machine:

   git clone https://github.com/huwan/pdf-font-embedder.git
   cd pdf-font-embedder

2. Copy the scripts to /usr/local/bin:

   sudo cp fontcheck /usr/local/bin
   sudo cp fontembed /usr/local/bin

3. Make the scripts executable:

   sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/fontcheck
   sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/fontembed

Usage

Checking for Embedded Fonts

To check if fonts are embedded in a PDF file, use the fontcheck script:

fontcheck file1.pdf file2.pdf ...

or

fontcheck *.pdf

This will output the font information for each PDF file specified.

Embedding Fonts

To embed fonts in a PDF file, use the fontembed script:

fontembed file1.pdf file2.pdf ...

or

fontembed *.pdf

This will embed fonts in each PDF file specified and overwrite the original file.

Example

# Check fonts in a PDF file
fontcheck sample.pdf

# Embed fonts in a PDF file
fontembed sample.pdf

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the developers of poppler, xpdf, and ghostscript for their invaluable tools.