PDF fonts and output file size

The base 14 Type 1 fonts

For every PDF data stream, there exists a core set of fonts that are ensured to be available to the Acrobat program. Because they are available on the system, they are not embedded in the document. Therefore, documents that are created with these fonts are more compact. These fonts are known as the base 14 fonts:

• Courier
• Courier-Bold
• Courier-BoldOblique
• Courier-Oblique
• Helvetica
• Helvetica-Bold
• Helvetica-BoldOblique
• Helvetica-Oblique
• Times-Roman
• Times-Bold
• Times-Italic
• Times-BoldItalic
• Symbol
• ZapfDingbats

Fonts that are not members of the base 14 fonts might be embedded in the document, or they might be stored in a font directory. Images and bar code fonts are also embedded in the document.

The PDF Indexer collects resources such as fonts and images, removes them from the document, and places them in a resource file. The number of embedded fonts in the document directly affects the size of the resource file.

You should use only the base 14 fonts when you create PDF documents. Because these fonts are not embedded in the document, documents that are created with these fonts are smaller, and the resource file is also smaller.