kcollinsdesign said:
If there are active fonts in the PDF and it's not password protected (meaning I can place it in Adobe Illustrator) I always can convert the type to outlines. That's one of the easier parts of the process. There are a couple items in the Flatten Transparency dialog box that have to be checked. Obviously the box that says "Convert All Text to Outlines" needs to be checked. Also the Raster/Vector Balance slider needs to be all the way to the right at 100. Any fonts that are embedded in the PDF should convert just fine with those settings. If the fonts had certain copy protect settings they wouldn't get embedded into the PDF in the first place.
The Hobbyist said:
Computers can recognize a lot of things, but they're not as adept at recognizing abstract shapes and lots of other aesthetic values as the human mind. I can recognize awful Arial when it has been warped and distorted out of its normal proportions. The same goes for many other typefaces. Computers fall apart at that. Even though plenty of us think we're dumb and forgetful at times, suck at math, etc, the brains we have in our heads are overwhelmingly more powerful and sophisticated than any computer ever invented. We have conscious thought, feelings, the soul. It's going to be a long time before a mainframe can ever get advanced enough to equal that. Computers are great at rapidly computing simple, surface level equations. They get into trouble when delving into the abstract.
Earlier today I was presented with a font ID challenge from a coworker. The sample was a hand brush category typeface. At first glance it looked like it could be along the lines of Impress or Churchward Brush, but it was really Brody. But this was a bad sample. The lettering on the original sign had been stretched wider than normal. Plus it was all smoothed out, as if it had been auto-traced from a JPEG image. Yet the original typeface's "Visual DNA" was still present.
