What is the difference between font embedding and font subsetting?
Estimated Reading Time: 1 MinutesFont embedding places the entire font within your output file, while font subsetting places only those characters which are actually used within your output file.
A PDF file with all fonts fully embedded can be quite large. Adobe allows the embedding of a subset of a font, including only those characters that are actually used in the file. This often leads to a much smaller PDF file, but with a subset font the reader of the PDF file might not be able to edit the file, such as by using the Adobe Acrobat editing tools, because some new characters that the reader may use might not be included in the subset font. If you will probably need to edit the PDF document later, you may want to consider embedding the entire font instead.
If you are going to view a PDF document in the Adobe Acrobat Reader, all fonts must be embedded in the file. Also, note that CID fonts, such as multi-byte and Unicode fonts, must be both embedded and subset to work reliably. After the font is embedded in the PDF document, it is subset to remove characters that will not be needed.