This has been an open thread for three and a half years (and will now be closed given that we know the answers verus myths and bubbameises). A summary:
(1) Hacking around with transparency to force conversion to outlines is a non-solution because our algorithms for transparency flattening try as much as possible to avoid such outlining if transparency flattening can be done without such outlining. Also, it is possible that some text might be rasterized which will degrade quality even more than outlining does.
(2) If for some stupid reason (yes, it is stupid), one needs to outline text of an entire document, the place to do that is in Acrobat Pro which has Preflight profiles specifically for that purpose. It does it completely and correctly (including EPS and PDF content that was placed within the InDesign document)!
(3) It should be obvious that outlining within an InDesign document is destructive to the InDesign document's text streams. You lose editability, searchability, etc. within your source document! You better have backups where the text is not outlined!
(4) Outlining text can dramatically reduce both display and print quality, especially at small magnifications (i.e., display size and point size) and with more complex typeface designs. You can also end up with oddball artifacts when displaying PDF with outlined text due to an Acrobat and Reader option designed to enhance thin lines (this option assumes people don't do stupid things like outlining text); this option can be disabled, but are you going to have to send messages to all potential recipients of the file as to how to configure Acrobat / Reader?
(5) Outlining text yields bloated PDF files that (a) are unnecessarily large in size, (b) have lower performance in display and print RIP functions, (c) are not searchable, and (d) cannot be edited in Acrobat either with the native tools or with third party plug-ins such as PitStop.
(6) Assuming that PDF from InDesign, Illustrator, and/or Photoshop is exported/saved with all fonts subset-embedded (the default for all PDF export/save settings) and with live transparency (the default except for all PDF export/save settings except for PDF/X-1a which you should not be using anyway), for printing purposes, there is absolutely no good reason whatsoever to outline fonts. Problems associated with fonts and the RIP process were common with third party PostScript RIPs (i.e., non- Adobe implementations) back in the 1990's, over twenty years ago. If you can properly display the PDF file's text in Adobe Reader or Acrobat, it will properly RIP.
(7) Why do some printers “require” outlining of text and for that matter PDF/X-1a files (i.e., forcing user flattening of transparency and conversion of all colors to some, often unspecified CMYK)? Simple! Lack of education and ongoing training, Luddite attitudes, and to quote some printers I've talked to, a desire to “blame the customer” if anything whatsoever goes wrong with a print job. Our best advice is that if you encounter such a print service provider (or the CSR from same), escalate to a higher level within that print service provider's organization and if necessary, find a print service provider who has decided to finally enter the 21st century! I know this sounds harsh, but it is true!!! FWIW, I have encountered a number of such print service providers who “claimed” that their PDF RIP or DFE required outlined text, all transparency flattened, and all colors pre-converted to some, often unspecifed CMYK colorspace. I dared them to print (at my expense and without any hacking around with my files prior to submitting them to the RIP process) some very complex PDF/X-4 files with live text, live transparency, with many graphica objects in ICC color-managed RGB and LAB colorspaces. Of course, they printed perfectly with the print service providers scratching their heads and claiming that “they did not know!”
That leaves the question as to when is it appropriate to “outline text?” The answer is very simple. Outlining text is appropriate only when you need to achieve some visual effect using text that cannot otherwise be achieved with normal scaling, rotation, etc. operations. This is sometimes necessary for logo creation where a “distorted,” customized rendition of a character or two is required. And if you do such outlining for artistic / creative purposes, remember that the resultant quality of outlining decreases as the text size decreases. Such artistic effects should only be used on larger size characters.
- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
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