embedded fonts

[Struggle1]

I am preparing a book in Word 97 and am almost done.  However, I am adamantly committed to using the following fonts:  Padua (body text), Garamand.  And I may become committed to other fonts when I do my title page and cover designs.  I see that at least the Padua font is not carried by Lulu and would have to be embedded.  I am confused about how to do this and, from reading a few posts on it, I am not clear that it can be done for just any font.  I also see that some posters advise switching to Open Office.  I use that, too (for other projects), but wouldn't that involve a lot of adjustments to formatting? Would simply shifting the whole project ot Open Office solve the whole matter? 

[Elmore Hammes]

If you are using non-standard fonts, then you would end up needing to take your source file (whether that is in Word 97 or Open Office or anything else) and create a PDF file from that to load as the interior source document. That is something you can do from a variety of programs, although if you plan on having distribution then I believe an Adobe-distilled PDF would be required.

If that isn't something you want to do, then you can either change to standard fonts, or  you can have someone else create the PDF from you - you can usually find people willing to do PDF creation and other similar tasks in the Collaboration forum.

[Struggle1]

Thank you, but I don't understand what you mean by "plan on having distribution."  I plan on sending the pdf file with embedded fonts to Lulu for publication.

[moranatwfudotedu]

If you are using fonts that came with your copy of Microsoft Windows, then the same fonts should be available to Lulu. In my experience the process of creating a PDF and sending it to Lulu to be used in preparing a "print-ready" PDF file is broken. Many, many people have reported problems. I have been unable to get it to work with only one vanilla font.

If you are using fonts that you have purchased and added to the stock of fonts your computer came with, then you are stymied. The reason is that there are copyright protections on at least most of those purchased fonts -- the obvious reason being that people would give them away to friends if they were not copy protected and the guy who designed the font would lose his livelihood to crooks. 

If I were you I would submit my book using the fonts that I like that came with my PC and I would submit the book as a DOC file. It only takes a few minutes to upload to Lulu, and then it only take a few more minutes for Lulu to try to make a print-ready file. 

When you do your cover you can use a graphics program that creates a graphics image of the font that you print with. You could use a purchased font for that purpose because the font stays on your computer. In effect you just make a photocopy of a word printed in that font, and that doesn't break their copyright -- the ability to print things in that font was what you paid them for in the first place. They just don't want you to take their business away by giving away the font to somebody who might otherwise purchase it from them.

The "advanced" procedure by which one makes one's own one-page covers back, spine, and front PDF image is not particularly difficult once you figure out Lulu's arcane system. It will take care of font issues for the cover.

Try the book content with DOC files. It should work.

[Struggle1]

Re the last poster:  this is very discouraging because I am very committed to certain fonts and they are not ones that came with Word.  I have had them for years and they are a trademark of a literary magazine I have edited for 25 years, so I want this book, the first of a series that I am publishing, to be consistent with that aesthetic tradition, to keep that look.  I highly value that look because if its extreme readability and grace.  I have been dealing with fonts since the 60s though I cannot be called a professional, so I have strong tastes. 

Your underlying point escapes me:  how can the use of a font in a pdf, which presumably is copied by some photo process by Lulu to print a book, result in someone stealing the use of the font any more than the appearance of this font in any publication anywhere result in its theft?

Why are some people on this forum simply suggesting using Open Office?  Would that solve anything?

[moranatwfudotedu]

I have a similar problem in trying to do Chinese for Kindle. Kindle is even more restrictive on the kinds of fonts it will permit.

The issue with copyrighted fonts is with the copyright holder, not with Lulu. They will most likely have built in copyright protection, so you will be unable to produce a PDF in that case. For instance, I have a file that was printed off in PoorRichard. I like it, but I cannot use that font on my Mac unless I spend $45 (?) to buy the font. Apple did not buy a license from the copyright owner to put it on all their computers I guess. I can use that font on my Windows computer. It came with the operating system. In ignorance I tried to download Poor Richard for my Mac from an on-line site. I actually got a file, but when I tried to install the file it turned out to be copy protected. Adobe must have had a deal with the owner of Poor Richard too, else they could not have embedded the font into the PDF that I got. I'm pretty sure that there would be no way for me to extract that font from the PDF document.

The work-around for you would be to find software that converts your book page by page into graphics images. That is the analog, in the Void, of printing something onto a piece of paper -- which is what you have been doing up to now. Nobody can get the font for use on their own computer by buying one issue of your magazine.  That's also what would make it o.k. to use your special font on a book cover PDF -- assuming that it's a graphics image and not a text file, i.e., that it's a bunch of pixels in a graphics image and not a binary number in a file that refers to (calls up) that image when you put something on the screen.  People could do a screen copy of enough pages of the book to assemble a complete alphabet of any protected font, but then they would have to use Fontographer or some similar software to create a font. By the time they had spent a work week making their pirated font they would have been ahead to pay the $45 to the rightful owner.

I don't know how many pages your book is intended to be, but I suppose that for every hundred pages there would be megabytes of graphics  images. Each page could be a separate PDF file and then you could assemble the little PDF files into one big one.

There is a Kindle book that has the Chinese text of Master Sun's Art of War. It has to have been done graphic image by graphic image. I'm not sure how big the file actually is. Maybe you could ask the provider of that text how s/he did it. (It may be called "Sun Tzu's" or "Sun Zi's" Art of War.)

[merriampress]

I have been using Lulu since Dec. 2005 and have published over 140 titles with them. Search for "Merriam Press" or "Ray Merriam" and you'll find my Lulu storefront which you can browse to see samples of the pages as well as the covers I have created for my books (more about covers later).

I have been using MS Word to create all of my books interior pages. Initially I used Word 2000 and currently am using Word 2003 (I hate Word 2007--it actually makes me work harder to do what I want to do).

I have never had a problem with embedding fonts--as long as I used Lulu's Acrobat PDF job options file (“Lulu.joboptions”—it can be downloaded from Lulu's site; Lulu changed their Help which I now find it harder to find their FAQ files). 

The job options files are what Acrobat uses to generate PDF files with specific requirements, such as whether or not fonts will be embedded and whether the entire font will be embedded (increases the size of the PDF file) or just those characters in the font that are actually used in the original document.

Using the Lulu.joboptions file you will not have any problems with embedding the fonts—unless they are protected fonts and then you’ll either have to pay for them or find a different unprotected font. After downloading the Lulu.jobptions file, just double-click it and it should be inserted where in the proper folder on your system, which should be:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Adobe PDF 6.0\Settings

This information was originally in Lulu’s FAQ files, but may not be there after they changed them to Help files.

However, if you have Windows 7, that won’t work because, of course, Microsoft changed the Documents and Settings folders. I have a backup computer with Win 7 and couldn’t get Acrobat to work to produce files that embed all the fonts. I am still using XP on my main computer and Acrobat 6 to get everything to work.

I use all kinds of fonts, system fonts as well as special fonts I have downloaded from various free font sites (where you can find a lot of "look-a-like" fonts to avoid the protected fonts) as well as a some that I have purchased.

So why are they “protected”? It’s not to prevent the use of those fonts by others who have a copy of the PDF file (I don’t believe you can extract the font file from a PDF document and then be able to use it on your system, but if you don’t have that same font file on your system, you won’t be able to change the PDF file, if that is even allowed by the creator of the PDF file).

The protection is there to prevent people from using a font they have not purchased (many font foundries will allow you to test a font but not be able to use it until you have paid for it and unlocked it). Creating good fonts is a very time-consuming and thus costly enterprise, especially for the big font producers. They have to make money to pay for that work and to continue creating new fonts. It’s just like when you publish a book—you want people to buy it and you would not be happy knowing people could get it for free, would you?

After creating the PDF file, if you check the document (in Acrobat under File/Document Properties), in the dialog box look at the Fonts section and you'll see each font that is in your PDF file. You may even see fonts there that you aren't even actually using, which means they are probably part of your Word Normal.dot file and will show up in the PDF file's fonts listing even though you don't have any text using those fonts.

Lulu does have some help files that deal with fonts and embedding. Do a search in their Help section for the following (these are the titles Lulu gave these Help files):

How do I embed fonts in a PDF

How to Make a PDF using Word and Adobe Acrobat

PDF Creation Settings (How can I be sure my PDF will print correctly)

As for Open Office, I have tried that a number of times and prefer Word. The claim that Open Office will convert Word doc files accurately is nonsense. I have yet to convert any of my book files done in Word and have them come out even close to the way they were created in Word. Headers and footers have been especially problematic. I have been using Word since 1993 (Version 6.0) so I know it well (until they messed it up with Word 2007).

When another post mentioned distribution, they were referring to having Lulu distribute your published book through Ingram, a major book distributor (almost all of the new books I have published since I started using Lulu have been added to the Ingram distribution system through Lulu’s service; most of my older titles, originally published before I started using Lulu, I have not put into the Ingram distribution system as they don’t sell well enough now to warrant the cost).

Lulu appears to now deal directly with Amazon, but to get your book into any other online booksellers’ web sites and into stores, you need to use the full distribution service offered by Ingram; there is a fee for this service, however. I believe there is no fee if you just want to get it on Amazon.

But to be able to get your book into the full distribution service, the PDF file MUST be created using Adobe Acrobat and must have all fonts embedded. There is no alternative to that.

I now always use FTP to upload the PDF files to my Lulu account. It is faster than uploading during the book wizard process on Lulu’s web site. When I used to upload the PDF files during the book wizard process, I ran into too many cases where the upload would fail and I had to start over. I’ve never had a problem with the FTP uploads. I use FileZilla, which was one of the FTP programs Lulu recommended and it works extremely well.

For the covers, I do not create the full, one-piece covers, but instead use Lulu’s old cover wizard. The new wizard is okay if you want a nice-looking generic cover without doing a lot of extra work. The first book I did with Lulu I tried doing a one-piece cover for the paperback version and although I created the cover in Photoshop Elements and followed Lulu’s directions perfectly, when I went to upload the file, Lulu refused it claiming it was no the correct size—but it was PRECISELY the size Lulu’s book wizard said to make it. I spent over an hour using Lulu’s live online support (this was back in Dec. 2005) and both the tech support woman I initially dealt with and then her supervisor could not figure out why it would not upload.

So I had to use the other method where I create the front and back covers for the paperback and hardcover dust jackets in Photoshop Elements, and then upload those two images separately when I use the old book cover wizard and then the wizard determines the correct spine thickness and I only have t add the text and colors for the spine and then the text for the flaps for the hardcover dust jacket,

Doing the front and rear covers in Photoshop Elements allows a lot of freedom in creating some great-looking covers (check out the covers on the books I have published; almost all were done by me, however, I have a strong art background and have been designing and publishing magazines and books for over 40 years). I save the covers in TIFF files and then make JPEG copies of the files which is what Lulu needs for the covers when you use the old book cover wizard method.

I have had very few problems using Lulu for the more than four years I have been using them. I have printed over 12,000 copies of the various titles I have in print, many in both paperback and hardcover. There was a learning curve those first months but trial and error solved the few problems I had.

[Struggle1]

Thanks to both of you.  This is a lot to absorb.  For starters, I am usng xp.  The whole thing of creating graphics files of every page of the book seems too much.  The other poster asserts that I could use my Word files after selecting that Lulu program, but that this would not work if the fonts were copyrighted.  How do I fnd out if that is the case?  I got these fonts many, many years ago and can't even remember how I got them.  And, on top of this, the other poste's description of making covers is rather intimidating.  If I was retired I might have the time to do something like that, but am still on my hard-labor job.

[moranatwfudotedu]

Just try it. The easiest thing to do would be to get about 100 pages of text (enough that Lulu's software will not reject it as too little to bind as a book) that uses the desired fonts. Make a Word .doc file. Go to Lulu and start a new project. To keep things simple you might as well use the 8.5  x 11 size. Submit the file as the insides of your "Trials in Lulu Land" book. Either you will get the file refused with some kind of an error message in the e-mail that will get sent to you, or you will get a "print-ready file," which you can download and examine.  

If you want special fonts on your cover then you will have to use fonts that Lulu supports for its automatic cover maker, or you will need to learn to use a graphics program. The Paint program that comes free with the Microsoft system would almost be enough to do the job. You could at least experiment with it. When you type something in Paint, once you switch from the typing word input mode you can't go back and backspace over a word to fix it as you can in a word processor. The reason is that it is already just a bunch of colored pixels, and if you want to change something you just erase it with the "eraser" tool.

If you have a Macintosh and GraphicsConverter, the process is extremely easy. Corel's Paint Shop Pro might not be too bad, but probably there are less expensive programs that do less but can do what you need. Basically that is: (1) Copy in pictures and paste them where you want them to appear on your cover. (2) Create images of letters in whatever fonts are on your computer. (3) Be able to tell you the exact size of the resulting images. What size book are you planning to make? What graphics programs do you have on your computer?

[Struggle1]

The book is over 100 pages and it is 6x9 in size.  It is not quite ready for submission; I still have to finish the page numberng, headers and table of contents.  I thought I would have to have it absolutely perfected before submitting it; do you mean that I can submit it as a Word file and then correct any mistakes I then find and resubmit it? This would mean that I can do a trial submission of an ms long enough but not perfected, just to see if the fonts are accepted. Evidently you mean that that is the way to find out if the fonts are accepted.  But I had understood that since the fonts I want are not on Lulu's list I definitely had to go the route of embedding them in a pdf file.

The person who had suggested Open Office did so claiming that Lulu would accept any fonts if they were in an Open Office file.  Is that so?  I can deal with the other Open OPffice problem mentioned:  changes that occur when moving my file from Word to Open Office.