How to Embed Fonts

You may need to embed your fonts before you upload your dissertation/thesis to the Digital Commons

Why? There are thousands of different fonts and each one may appear differently in different operating systems on different computers. When other people view your documents, your letters and formatting may not appear correctly and it and may even disappear completely. “Embedding” your fonts in your document solves this problem and ensures that your documents appear the same on every computer.

How Do I know if I need embed fonts? If you’ve used the standard TrueType fonts that UT-GSBS requires (Times, Courier, and Arial) throughout your entire document, you may not need to. If you have Greek mathematical symbols, graphics with captions, you probably do need to. It’s best to go ahead and do it, just to be sure. It’s easy and only takes a minute.

How Do I embed fonts? Instructions on how to embed fonts vary depending on which version of Word, WordPerfect, and Adobe Acrobat you’re using. Check the Help file to learn how to do it.

To embed fonts in Word 2010:

  1. Go to File/Options/Save.
  2. Check the "Embed fonts in the file" and "Embed only the
  3. characters used in the document."

To embed fonts in Word 2007:

  1. Click the Microsoft Office Button (top left corner).
  2. Click Word Options (bottom of box).
  3. On the Save tab, select “Embed fonts” and “Embed only the characters used in the document.”

To embed fonts in Word 2002 and 2003:

  1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
  2. Click the Save tab.
  3. Select the Embed TrueType fonts check box.

Check your work! Please double check the text of your online dissertation after you have uploaded it to the Digital Commons. If it doesn’t appear correctly, contact digitalcommons@exch.library.tmc.edu.