How to embed fonts in a PDF

Conference submissions in PDF format sometimes need all the fonts embedded. Here are some brief instructions on how to do it:

pdflatex

1. Check the pdf file with pdffonts <file.pdf>. All fonts should be listed as "yes" in the "emb" and "sub" columns. If not, continue:
2. Run locate updmap.cfg to find updmap.cfg on your system
3. Edit updmap.cfg: set pdftexDownloadBase14 to true (I also set DownloadBase35 to true)
4. Run updmap. This regenerates a bunch of pdflatex config files
5. Run pdflatex on the tex source as usual, then check the pdf file with pdffonts <file.pdf> again. All fonts should be listed as "yes" in the "emb" and "sub" columns.

There are more instructions, including other methods, at http://ismir2005.ismir.net/pdf.html.

gnuplot

To get gnuplot to embed the default Helvetica font, you need to use the following first line:

set terminal postscript eps enhanced "NimbusSanL-Regu" fontfile "uhvr8a.pfb"

Note: On OS X you may need to include the full path to the font, depending on your installation of gnuplot.

epstopdf

Here is a patch to get epstopdf to embed all fonts. epstopdf is just a script so you should be able to apply the patch by hand directly to the script.