PowerPoint: Find and Delete Embedded Fonts

by AJ George 

Last week I covered how to embed fonts in a PowerPoint presentation. On the flip side, what if you receive a presentation and have issues opening it because of an embedded font? This seems to be a relatively rare issue, and may not affect you (or the person receiving your presentation) if you used a fancy script font. The problem seems to be more related to the inclusion of certain fonts in the system, like Asian fonts that read the opposite direction. Sometimes, when sending these presentations off (particularly over-seas) there can be issues.

This issue was brought to my attention, so I began to explore and document how to find and delete embedded fonts. However, I found that the folks over at PPTools already have a pretty in-depth write up on this, including multiple solutions. Check out this link for what to do if your presentation contains Asian texts and formats that PowerPoint can't display.

Several great solutions are provided, but I would like to throw one more in the mix that might also work for you. If you know there is a font throwing a kink in the works but can't find where it is used within the presentation, try the following:

1. With your presentation opened in PowerPoint 2010, choose File > Save & Send > Create Handouts.
2. Click the Create Handouts button.  

This will send your presentation to MS Word. Since we are not actually interested in the handouts, you can choose anything from the Send to Microsoft Word dialog box and click OK. MS Word will open.


3. In Word 2010, press [Ctrl] [F] on your keyboard to bring up the Navigation pane.
4. Click the more arrow to the right of the Search Document field.




5. Select Advanced Find from the drop-down menu.

The Find and Replace dialog box will open.


6. At the bottom of the dialog box, click the Formatbutton and choose Font.
7. In the Font field, type the name of the offending font and click OK.

This will return you to the Find and Replace dialog box.


8. Leave the Find What field blank and click the Find Next button.

Word will find where the font was used so you can delete whatever is causing the hiccup back in your PowerPoint presentation.

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. 

Comments

[Jenny Chappell]

I don't have embedded fonts but my Captivate 5.5 is locking up EVERY time I try to insert power point slides. I have tried pptx and ppt. Both lock up. I get the message about the size and whatnot, then the slides say they are converting (Adding slides 3 of 3), the bar gets to 100% then never goes away. I have to close Captivate, reopen, the slides are not there and I get into the same trap again when trying to add them. Help. This is critical for a training I am creating.

[AJ]

Hi Jenny,

Check out these links and see if they help your problem:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/414961
or
http://www.jiagouyan9.com/archives/importing-from-powerpoint-2003-causes-captivate-5-to-freeze.html/