Apr 4, 2015

Embed your fonts before emailing your deck

www.pixabay.com
Your slide deck is ready. You have spent hours, if not days to make it. Now is the time to shoot if off. But wait...

If you have used any special or uncommon fonts in your presentation, remember to embed them within the PowerPoint file.

The special fonts used by you will most likely be absent on the computer of the person receiving the deck. What happens when he/she opens your presentation?

The computer will replace your special font with whatever is available. The result - all the layouts will go haywire. The look is gone. It will actually ruin the look and formatting completely.

How to embed fonts in MS PowerPoint 2013? (2010 and earlier versions are similar)
Go to file -> Options -> Under Save -> Embed fonts in file -> Embed all characters

Now the computer which receives your file can display the special fonts. Good luck!

7 comments :

  1. Hi Vivek,
    This is a very good tip! Especially when custom fonts are used in a PowerPoint presentation. However, it is important to notice the font license, because some fonts are not allowed to be distributed (even inside a PowerPoint file). Normally the font license clarifies if the font can be distributed or if distribution is forbidden.

    Regards,

    - Julian M.
    www.slidemodel.com

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  2. Point taken. When downloading the font, one needs to check the license.

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  3. Notice that embedding fonts in PP only works for TTF-TrueTypeFonts but even with TTF if the font was created with a distribution restriction code, it won't embedd it but you'll get a warning when you try to save.

    If you used OTF-OpenTypeFonts, PP won't warn you at all and you'll find it only when you open the PPT(X). In this case you must send a folder with those fonts and ask the recipients to install them in their computers before running the PPT(X).

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    Replies
    1. That's helpful. I did not know that. Thanks a lot Miguel.

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  4. It's kinda weird that you used a Mac for your photograph, then gave instructions only for PowerPoint. Is this possible for Keynote as well?

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  5. @Suzy Good observation :) I have no idea about Mac. I am a Windows guy.

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  6. Hi Vivek

    You tip is really useful.
    We stucked with this problem every day.
    This is a very common problem when designer forgets to insert the FONT folder in PowerPoint template package.
    Not even PowerPoint, with MS Word template we have the same situation.
    So thank you for your tip.
    This is great !

    ReplyDelete