InDesign: convert text to outlines when exporting to PDF

September 1, 2018
Evan from the InDesign Feedback forum has got it going on. If your printing company requires text be converted to outlines, there is an automatic way to do it. He writes: "Go to EDIT >> TRANSPARENCY FLATTENER PRESETS. Click NEW. Give it a name you'll remember like 'Outline Everything'. Check the box for CONVERT ALL TEXT TO OUTLINES and hit OK to save that preset. Now when you go to export your PDF, in the export options, go to ADVANCED and choose your 'Outline Everything' preset from the 'Transparency Flattener' dropdown menu. You'll probably have to go back and tweak the settings in your flattener preset a few times to get exactly what you want." Sonofagun. It works like a charm. As another user reports, it only works with the PDF/X-3:2003 standard, but if that limitation is acceptable to you, as it was to us, go for it. UPDATE: We discovered another necessary step: in order for the transparency flattener to be used, there must be something with transparency in your document. If your document doesn't have that, just make a small frame with no stroke and no fill (so it won't be seen) and set its opacity to 99%.
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Fiona
August 10, 2022
Great tip - thank you!