Can I package my PSD files for export and include the fonts?

Question

This question is very similar to this one, but not a duplicate...in my opinion anyway.

I am not so much interested in finding out which fonts are used, I just want to know if it's possible to package them, much like you can in InDesign and Illustrator.

This seems like yet another oversight and incontinuity between Adobe programs

Solution 1

I know this was asked over a year ago, and in that time I still don't see a way to easily collect the fonts used in a PSD through Photoshop.

However I did think of a workaround, and it worked for me.

Open your PSD file in Illustrator and select Convert Layers to Objects, which will keep text editable (when possible).

Then, package the PSD file through Illustrator.

That should give you all of the fonts.

Solution 2

Unfortunately embedding fonts in PSD files is not possible at this moment.

It was already suggested a few years ago on the Adobe Photoshop forums, for example here.

The Photoshop file format does not support embedding fonts. It preserves the fonts appearance, but it doesn't allow editing the text layers, if you don't have the required font installed on your computer (they'll be replaced with another font). You could save the file as Photoshop PDF in order to embed the fonts, but it won't be editable either on a computer that doesn't have those font installed.

Actually the Photoshop format is so bad that in some cases it doesn't allow editing text layers if you didn't have the specific font installed in the first place. I just ran a little test: I created a Photoshop PDF file with a custom font text layer. The font was embedded (checked in Adobe Acrobat). Then I uninstalled the font. When I tried to edit the file in Photoshop it prompted me to change the font (since I didn't have the one I used to create the text layers). I closed the file and restored the font. But when I reopened my file, Photoshop still prompted to change the font - for some reason it didn't recognize the font, even though it was there and I was able to use it.

So, if you want to edit the PSD file on another computer (or by someone else), you've got few options (none of which would be a perfect solution for you, I guess):

1. Use common fonts, such as Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, etc. (this is the simplest but probably the worst solution);
2. Include the font files manually (you should check the font's license terms to find out if it's permitted). Due to some strange reasons mentioned above, it's not guaranteed to work on another computer, but you can always "change" the font to the one used originally and preserve the file appearance;
3. Rasterize text layers if they don't have to be edited later (you might want to duplicate the text layer first and hide the copy - just in case);
4. Convert text layers to shapes - it's better than rasterizing, because it allows you to change it's size and shape, without losing the quality. It doesn't allow editing text though, so it's a good idea to duplicate the layer before converting it.

Comments

[Ramhound]

It likely is a incontinuity and unlikely a oversight. Adobe makes certain features unique to software suites all the time.

[Manly]

Yea, I had done some pretty extensive Google searching and found no solutions, before I asked here. This was a last-ditch effort. Thanks for the input. The other designer that I work with asked me if this was possible, because he has about a million iterations of Futura and we are always running into font conflict issues, when we share files. We have all of the font files on our server, it's just a hassle when I get something then need to go install the fonts...

[pafflick]

I know exactly how inconvenient this could be, since I've been already trying to find some workaround a while ago... The worst thing is that even if both of you have the same font installed on your machines, sometimes PS just don't recognize them and you have to change it anyway.

[Burgi]

Could you include a screenshot or two illustrating this process? Also the OP was asking for solutions within PhotoShop directly as he mentions it is possible in Illustrator.

[Manly]

What a great workaround! I hope you don't mind that I took the liberty of adding the photos, as I experimented with your method.

[CMSCSS]

Genius! Thanks for sharing.