By Kathy Jacobs, Microsoft MVP and webmistress of www.OnPPT.com.

You have a great presentation all done and you want to pass it to someone else to review. They review it and want to make changes. Whether they can depends on how well you did your homework when choosing the fonts.

Fonts are shared in one of two ways. You can either embed the font in the presentation file or you can send the font file itself with the presentation. Before you do either of these, though, make sure that you have permission to share the font you used.

Make sure you're legal

When font designers create TrueType fonts, which are the only fonts that can be embedded and shared, they can set up the font with various levels of sharing rights, which determine whether PowerPoint allows a presentation file with embedded fonts to be opened.

These levels can vary from "Installable embedding allowed" to "No embedding allowed." "No embedding allowed" is the most restricted level, and allows you to share the font only for printing and viewing. So when you use these fonts in a presentation, others can view or print the presentation, but not edit it.

The rules are basic: Any font delivered with Microsoft Windows® can be embedded, but shouldn't be, because it will always be on the system receiving your file. All fonts delivered with Microsoft Office can be embedded because they are all fully sharable. (They, too, probably don't need to be embedded because they will be on any system with PowerPoint installed, but they can be.) Other fonts can be embedded only if they have no license restrictions.

Check license restrictions easily

Microsoft has some excellent information here regarding typography, sharing fonts, and other such topics. The Microsoft Typography site includes a tool that you can add to Windows to check the properties of the fonts on your system. First-rate information — I strongly recommend that you check it out.

Aside: Do you have PowerPoint 2003? When you get that annoying message about your presentation containing read-only fonts, you have a presentation with a restricted font in it. The person who created the presentation had full rights to use the font on their computer, but the font can't legally be shared with you. When PowerPoint tries to open the presentation for you to edit, it checks to see if you have the font installed. If you don't, you can't change the presentation. To change the presentation, you must either open the presentation in an earlier version of PowerPoint or contact the original presentation owner and have them send you a replacement.

How do you know if you can share fonts?

For some fonts, it is pretty easy. If you had to pay for a font, chances are pretty good that you can't share it with someone else. At the other extreme, if the font comes with Windows or Office, you don't need to share it because everyone who can work with your presentation already has it.

For those fonts in the middle, you need to check with the font originator. This is not necessarily the person who created the font, but the person from whom you got the font. If you got the font in a package, there should be usage information with the CD. If you downloaded it from a Web site, you should be able to find the licensing information on the site.

What about freebie fonts? Aren't those always sharable?   No, they aren't. Many people who create free fonts expect you to install them on one machine and for personal use only. If the font is freely distributable, the Web site will say that. If the site doesn't say that you can distribute the font, I recommend you stay away from it. If the webmaster doesn't say whether you can share, it may be because they don't know. In other words, the font may be a pirated copy of someone else's font.

What about fonts I have had for a very long time and for which I can't remember what my rights were?   Don't use them in a presentation where they would need to be embedded. Sharing a font without the right to do so is theft of intellectual property. Just as you wouldn't want someone to take your presentation and call it their own, using someone's font in a way that you don't have permission to do is wrong.

Times when you can't embed fonts, ever

If you are running an Apple Macintosh computer, you can not embed fonts. It just isn't supported. In addition, you can't embed fonts in templates that you develop in PowerPoint 2000 or earlier. If you embed a font in a PowerPoint 2002 or later template and then open that template in PowerPoint 2000 or earlier, the file strips the fonts out when you re-save it.

How to share fonts

You can either embed a font you want to share in the presentation file or you can send the font file itself with the presentation.

Embed fonts in your presentation

1. On the File menu, click Save As.
2. On the toolbar, click Tools, click Save Options, select the Embed TrueType Fonts check box, and then do one of the following:

   To embed only those characters used in the presentation, select Embed characters in use only (best for reducing file size).

   To embed all the characters in the font set, select Embed all characters (best for editing by others).

    Note   If you plan to have others review and edit your file, it's best to embed the full font set, although that creates a larger file.

Send a font with your presentation

If you have the right to share a font, but the font isn't embeddable, you can make a copy of the font file and send that copy with the presentation. If you do send the font with the presentation file, be sure to tell the file's recipient how to install the font on their system.

To make a copy of the font on a computer running Windows XP:

1. Open Windows Explorer.
2. Navigate to the folder <Drive>:\WINDOWS\Fonts.
3. Right-click the file with your font's name and click Copy on the shortcut menu.
4. Browse to the folder that contains your presentation.
5. Right-click and click Paste on the shortcut menu.

   The font file appears in the directory and you can send it with the file.

To install the font on a computer running Windows XP

1. Open Windows Explorer.
2. Browse to the folder that contains your presentation.
3. Right-click the file with your font's name and click Copy on the shortcut menu.
4. Navigate to the folder <Drive>:\WINDOWS\Fonts.
5. Right-click and click Paste on the shortcut menu.

   The font is installed on the system.

For more information about working with fonts, see the previous article in this series, Add character: Choose and change fonts, or the next article, Gotcha! What to watch out for with fonts.

Return to Fonts: Find them, understand them, and use them well.

About the author: Kathy Jacobs founded her Web site, www.OnPPT.com, to help others learn from her experiences. She was named a PowerPoint MVP by Microsoft in the spring of 2003, and she does consulting on developing and improving PowerPoint presentations and applications, as well as training PowerPoint users of all levels. Kathy has two bad knees, so she doesn't do standup training anymore. That's done nothing to prevent her from releasing the odd pun or two.