The fonts available on a local system used to create a PowerPoint presentation won’t always be available on the system used during the presentation. At best, the system will substitute a font that works well enough. At worst, the system will substitute a font that makes a mess. This is true for Microsoft 365 and earlier versions of PowerPoint. Don’t leave such an important visual component up to chance — the solution is embedded fonts.
When you embed a font, you ensure your presentation will look the same on any computer, even if the fonts you use aren’t installed. Embedded fonts ensure your presentation is consistent and readable during the actual presentation — as you intended. This is especially important if you’re using a custom font that’s not widely available but is important to your overall design.
SEE: Here’s how to create a dynamic presentation in PowerPoint.
How to embed a font into a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation
The good news is that you can embed or save the fonts you use in your presentation. It won’t matter if the presentation system doesn’t have your fonts of choice because the presentation will have them. Simply tell PowerPoint to save the fonts as follows:
- From the File menu, choose Save As, or choose Save a Copy if you’re using OneDrive.
- If necessary, choose a site other than the default. In this case, we’ll use the default OneDrive site. To the right, click More Options (Figure A).
- In the resulting dialog box, select Save Options from the Tools dropdown (Figure B).
- In the resulting dialog, click Save in the left pane (if necessary).
- Check the Embed fonts in the file option in the Reserve fidelity when sharing this presentation section near the bottom (Figure C). We’ll discuss the two options in a minute.
- Click OK. Click Save, then confirm the save by clicking Yes if you’ve previously saved the presentation.
Choosing an Embed fonts method
Embed fonts in the file has two options:
- Embed only the characters used in the presentation (default) will save only those characters in the specified fonts that you actually use.
- Embed all characters will embed the entire font package, which includes characters you don’t use.
If you don’t use a character, say X, in the presentation, and you use the default option to save the fonts, the letter X in the embedded font won’t be available to you or anyone else who tries to edit the presentation later on a system that doesn’t already have the specified font installed.
SEE: Learn how to create a moving arrow in Microsoft PowerPoint.
The default option produces a small file, which is a good thing. However, if there’s any possibility that you or someone else will want to edit the presentation on the fly, consider using the second option, so all of the characters in the specified font are available.
How to ensure the font you’re using can be embedded
Nowadays, most fonts are embeddable, but it won’t hurt to check first, especially if you’re using an older system or an older version of PowerPoint. To check for this property, you must be logged in as an administrator. An administrator is someone who can make changes to your computer that will affect other users with user accounts on the same system.
If you’re the only one using your computer, you are probably already logged in as the administrator. When that’s the case, you don’t need to do anything. If, on the other hand, you aren’t logged in as the administrator, you will receive a prompt when you try to check a font’s properties. Enter your user name and password and continue. If that doesn’t work, you don’t have administrator permission. Contact your system administrator for help.
Assuming you are logged in as the administrator, let’s check a font to see if it’s embeddable:
- Using File Explorer, pull up This Computer, your local drive and the Windows folder (Figure D).
- From the list of folders and files in the Windows folder, choose Fonts, which will open the fonts installed on your system. You’ll see thumbnails that represent fonts and font families (Figure E).
- Right-click the font in question, and choose Properties. If Properties isn’t available, you’ve chosen a font family. Double-click the family thumbnail, then right-click the specific font and choose Properties (Figure F).
- In the resulting dialog, click the General tab (if necessary).
- Make sure the Read-Only property in the Attributes section isn’t checked (Figure G). If Read-Only is checked, uncheck it.
- Click the Details tab. The Font Embeddability setting will be Editabile or Installable. As you can see in this case, the font is Editable, which means it is embeddable (Figure H). You can also embed an Installable font. If you see any other setting, you can’t embed the font.
SEE: Discover how to add multiple flashing stars in a PowerPoint slide.
On the rare chance your system won’t let you uncheck the Read-Only property, contact your system administrator or choose another font. However, this probably won’t happen.
Embed fonts for consistency
It’s easy to be complacent nowadays with so many interesting and creative fonts already installed on our personal systems. For the sake of consistency and avoiding font and spacing bloopers, I recommend embedding fonts in any presentation that has the potential to leave your control. You might save your colleagues and yourself a bit of embarrassment.
