Adobe most strongly recommends use of “save as PDF” from Adobe Illustrator as opposed to creating PDF via distillation of PostScript. The PostScript generated by Illustrator (and for that matter, InDesign, Photoshop, and Acrobat) is optimized for printing to a PostScript printer and not for generation of efficient, reliable PDF!!!

We also recommend subset embedding all fonts referenced in a PDF file. Given the size of many new OpenType fonts with exceptionally large character sets, fully embedding a font can result in useless bloat to a PDF file. We know of no good reason for embedding a full font in a PDF file. Contrary to some popular misconceptions, embedding a full font in a PDF file (a) does not let you edit the text of the PDF file using the text touch-up tool of Acrobat using the embedded font itself and (b) does not let you display or edit the text of the PDF file in Adobe Illustrator using the embedded font. (Note that Adobe does not endorse attempts to edit full PDF files in Adobe Illustrator which is not a general purpose PDF file editor and can only safely edit PDF files saved from the current or later versions of Illustrator using the editability option!)

In both (a) and (b) above, you need to have the original font actually installed on the system itself in order to accomplish the edits of (a) or the proper display and edit of (b).

There are some third party tools that claim to support editing of text in PDF using fully embedded fonts, but they don't always work as you might expect. When fonts are “fully embedded” in a PDF file, in reality, only the glyph definitions and advance width metrics are embedded, not all the advanced metrics including kerning information and OpenType features, severely limiting the functionality and quality of any such text edit functionality.

Exactly what use case do you have that you believe really requires fully-embedded fonts?

          - Dov

I looked at the Data Requirements for Fonts as described by “Onlineprinters.com” at http://www.onlineprinters.com/dd_fonts.htm?websale7=diedruckerei;02-aa &tpl=02-aa/$ws-cms/dd_fonts.html.

They may be “an ISO certified company” but that doesn't mean that they are knowledgeable or follow reliable workflow processes and procedures. Based upon what they describe on that web page, I would stay very clear of such a printing company and I am sure many other experience graphics professionals would advise you likewise. This printing company clearly doesn't know what it is talking about with such misinformation (to put it very mildly) as:

Embedding fonts as subgroups often results in errors in the RIP interpretation (exposure process), which results in the absence of special characters and umlauts. In addition, it can also cause the displacement of line breaks.

and

Based on our experience, the following fonts are susceptible to line break displacement or the absence of special characters and umlauts: TrueType, Multiple Master, Composite fonts.

The only way this operation could be actually encountering such problems if by some combination of truly ancient RIPs and PDF workflow software versions and/or professional incompetence! Their “requirements” are certainly not backed up by their national print trade associations (they are based in Germany and their print trade associations are members of the Ghent PDF Workgroup which absolutely does not subscribe to this arrogant rubbish!). Or maybe they are just believing long-discredited urban legends (the warning against TrueType points to that). Note that PDF is a “final form file format” and as such, it is literally impossible to get what they describe as “displacement of line breaks” based on either the type of font used or whether a font is fully-embedded or subset embedded.

Adobe software does not guarantee the ability to fully embed any and all fonts under any circumstance. What Adobe software does provide is the ability to at least subset embed any font that is not physically protected against embedding (and this isn't an issue of subset versus full font embedding). We are not aware of any modern day graphic arts RIP (based on Adobe RIP software or otherwise) or process that has problems with subsetted fonts.

We are sorry that you appear to be stuck with this printing company which based on their so-called requirements, seems to be intent on mediocrity (outlining text is known to produce degraded text output quality, especially at small point sizes and with decorative or complex typefaces) and is likely to cause other problems with their printed output with blame place on fictional bogeymen!

     - Dov

Well, good luck and let us know if we can assist you further.

Too bad many print service providers really don't understand the true aspect of service and seem to be more interested in CYA (cover your *ss) than really meeting customer needs and high quality product.

Unfortunately, this specimen is not isolated!

          - Dov

Edward,

(1)     The fact that they are OK with certain fonts subsetted and others not indicates the true foolishness of their declared requirements.

(2)     If their joboptions file is inconsistent in terms of the specifed output color space from what they declare to be their required color space, it shows how screwed up they are in terms of how they develop and communicate their requirements.

(3)     The reason that we typically don't downsample images unless they significantly exceed the target resolution is that downsampling is in fact a lossy and destructive process. Images are downsampled at the RIP anyway and if you can avoid cascading lossy downsampling operations, you may avoid unnecessary image degradation. The values they provide of downsampling anything over 600dpi to 400dpi is fairly odd. Typical industry practice  and experience is that 300dpi is quite sufficient for most high quality offset printing which typically has more exacting requirements. I would leave their settings as-is. They won't hurt you other than to yield a slightly larger PDF file.

(4)     Don't try to artificially upsample or downsample any image before placing into InDesign. Upsampling does not improve quality in any way whatsoever. Downsampling can lead to the problem of cascading tranformations per (3) above.

(5)     The recommended compression should be Automatic (JPEG) with Maximum quality. Images that are photographic in nature will be compressed with JPEG compression and images that are more “vector-like” (i.e., not photographic, but really representing material that would otherwise be done with text and/or vector) are losslessly compressed with ZIP compression. This is the best of both worlds and should be just fine for 99.999% of all PDF production. Note that Adobe applications typically send imagery that is already JPEG-compressed and that doesn't absolutely require downsampling through directly to the PDF file without decompressing and recompressing, a cascading operation that further decreases quality.

          - Dov

Take two asprin and call me in the morning ...

(1)     Place the images as-is into InDesign. Don't downsample in Photoshop prior to placing. InDesign (actually, more specifically, Adobe's core technology libraries) will downsample the images if necessary during the PDF export. This isn't a matter of laziness. Not downsampling prior to placement is actually prudent because it gives you flexibility. If you downsample, you are committed to a maximum resolution at highest quality because you have already discarded original image data.

(2)     Back to the color issue. The CMYK color space specified in the joboptions will indeed be the CMYK color space of the generated PDF file. You should be OK with your RGB imagery (hopefully it is tagged with an ICC profile) whether or not your joboptions call for conversion of RGB to CMYK or not. Your untagged CMYK text and vector should be OK. Depending upon whether you ask for color conversion, no conversion, or color conversion (preserve numbers), you may or may not be OK in terms of some nasty CMYK to CMYK conversions which you typically would like to avoid. The color stuff can be quite nasty especially if you have mismatches in the CMYK color space and you don't have the preserve numbers option. Of course, it also depends upon how critical CMYK color managment is to you (as opposed to RGB to CMYK color management which generally quite critical). Without actually seeing your color settings, a sample document, and the joboptions, it is very difficult to give you further advice.

          - Dov