Have you ever created a document with a unique font on your personal computer and then wanted to edit that document on another computer, or share it with other teachers or students, while maintaining your custom font? Microsoft PowerPoint, Publisher, and Word all provide the ability to embed fonts in documents, so that the fonts are preserved when shared or edited on other computers.  

Here are the simple steps to embedding a font in your document:

1. Click File on the far left of the Office Ribbon, and click Options from the menu that appears.
2. In the Options pop-up window, choose the Save menu, and check the box next to Embed fonts in the file.
3. Choose the Embed all characters radio button beneath the Embed fonts option, which will allow the document to maintain those fonts even if lettering is later changed.
4. Click OK, then type Ctrl-S or choose File > Save to save these changes to your document.

Bonus Tip: Excel does not include an “embed fonts in the file” option, but if you embed an Excel spreadsheet with custom fonts into a Word document you can then embed the fonts in the Word document file using the instructions above.

Bonus Tip #2: If you are creating a document in a different program than those mentioned above that does not provide the “embed fonts” option, you can preserve custom fonts in a document by saving it as a PDF file type or “printing” it to a PDF file. This will work well in instances where others do not need to edit the document later.

Bonus Tip #3: If you want to avoid installed computer fonts altogether, web-based productivity and design programs such as G Suite or Canva include many excellent font options that do not require installment on computers and can be edited from any device connected to the internet or shared with anyone without worries of font or formatting errors.

This technology tip comes to us from Mark Monson, Network Engineer in the Information Systems Dept., and Darlene Bennett, School Technology Specialist for Orchard Elem. and Rolling Meadows Elem.