Use Type-1 Fonts in PDF Papers
Chen Li
Department of Computer Science, UC Irvine
May 11, 2005

Recently many publishers have strict requirements about the fonts used in camera-ready paper submissions. Specifically, they require authors to substitute Adobe Postscript Type 1 fonts for any bitmap fonts (e.g., Postscript Type 3 bitmapped fonts, PCL fonts, MacOS bitmap fonts, Windows vector (outline) fonts). Being the Proceedings Chair of ACM PODS 2005, I set up the instructions for camera-ready submissions. In the process of editing the proceedings, I saw many common problems for authors to meet such a requirement. I wrote this page so that it may benefit other authors with similar problems. As always, comments are very welcome.

Font Requirements

The following are some general font requirements by ACM. Authors should substitute Adobe Postscript Type 1 fonts for any bitmap fonts (e.g., Postscript Type 3 bitmapped fonts, PCL fonts, MacOS bitmap fonts, Windows vector (outline) fonts). Bitmapped fonts display poorly on screen in PDF files and sometimes cause printing problems. Whenever possible, please substitute Type 1 Postscript fonts for Type 3 fonts in LaTEX files, then generate PS or PDF. LaTEX FILES: PDFs generated from LaTEX files generally do not display well on screen because the fonts that are generated from LaTEX for the PDFs are bitmap images.

Why Such Requirements?

The simple reason for having these requirements is to make sure your PDF papers can be displayed nicely when they are browsed by people. Type 1 fonts are displayed much better than Type 3 fonts, even though the paper in Type 1 fonts may print the same as the one in Type 3 fonts. Click this page to see good examples to illustrate the quality difference of different fonts. I copied their examples here. Here are examples from pdf files viewed in Acrobat Reader at 400% zoom.

 Default LaTeX/dvips 
behavior		 Example with bitmap fonts
Package times.sty
(part of PSNFSS)
forces use of
Postscript fonts		 Example using PSNFSS
 Outline fonts from AMS 
embedded in PDF file		 Example using AMS type-1 fonts

How do you tell what fonts your pdf file is using?

When you open your PDF file using Adobe Acrobat Reader, go to "File --> Document Properties --> Fonts" to see the fonts used in your PDF file. Make sure to click "List All Fonts" to see all the fonts. You may also bring up this box by typing "Ctrl+Alt+F". The following is an example.

LaTeX dvips command to produce PDF files using Type 1 fonts only

I used the following dvips command (in MiKTeX) to produce PDF files using Type 1 fonts only:

dvips -t letter -Ppdf -G0 -j0 mypaper.dvi -o mypaper.ps

Check this link for more information about the options.

Common Problems

If your PDF file includes type 3 fonts, you may check the following to get rid of such fonts.

1. Use the right dvips option

Make sure to use the right options in the dvips command. Try the following:

dvips -t letter -Ppdf -G0 -j0 mypaper.dvi -o mypaper.ps

2. Missing fonts

If your LaTeX environment doesn't have all the necessary fonts used by your file, when you use dvips, it will produce a file called:

missfont.log

Check if this file exists. If it does, it means your environment misses some fonts, and needs to install them. Check this link for more information.

3. Type 3 fonts from figures (xfig)

Often type-3 fonts are introduced from figures. In particular, I found that eps files produced by xfig can introduce type-3 fonts. In particular, according to http://leon.bottou.com/nips/, 
    * xfig "patterned" shapes are implemented with bitmap fonts.
      Use "solid" shapes instead.
As an example, the following two xfig files both draw the same circle. The file "pattern.fig" uses a "patterned" shape to draw the circle, and its corresponding "pattern.pdf" is using a type-3 font. The file "solid.fig" uses a "slide" shape to draw the circle, and its corresponding "slide.pdf" is not introducing any type-3 font.

A circle using a patterned shape (type-3 font introduced)

A circle using a solid shape (type-3 font not introduced)

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