While this mostly works now, there is a request to be able too see them as substituted anyway, mentioned in Discord:
https://discord.com/channels/634884897185595412/1341865281206747218/1341865281206747218

Please allow to choose if we need to prefer the way these are treated, for all / some missing fonts.

this is same as this feature request. lets combine the request
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/31840996-convert-text-to-outlines-on-open

Hello, what is the current status on this feature. Open file as curves. currently the work around of flattening transparency and selecting outline text generally works.. would be nice if this also worked on documents with several pages. perhaps as a initial release just add the same function upon opening. get the basic functionality in there. before we get elaborate with edge cases

Good morning Avinash,

Thanks for reaching out!

I don't think the quality or quantity of my input warrants an actual discussion; it would likely amount to "a meeting that could have been an email," and I'm sure both of us have too many of those already ;).

That said, here's my input:
Re: "Ability to convert the outlined/expanded text back to live text."
This would certainly be welcome for cases (like the one described by OP "Cameron"), in which a system font is unavailable. It would be nice for me when I'm remediating a "Public Health" flyer for accessibility in Acrobat and they've left the "L" out of "Public" (also an important issue I suppose), or a typo-ridden flyer designed in Canva lands in my lap, plagued by "Canva Sans" or some other foolishness.

Luckily I usually have more options than folks like Cameron, because at work I'm part of a team which looks over any public-facing media, checking for ADA and AP style and proper branding (and sometimes overall wierdness), before it's posted to the internet or taped to a window. Because of that positioning, I can usually ask them for source docs to re-export, or even change the font myself.

Where I run in to trouble is when I'm redesigning ad campaigns from an existing source (sometimes as little as one image), which needs to be formatted into around 20 different sizes and shapes for local print and web advertising. In those cases, if we need to add or edit text, I'm just font-hunting, usually just ending up with a free option. In a pinch I've just hacked up existing letters in Illustrator to make new ones, and round out a font that way. Labor intensive, kind of silly, but sometimes the only tool in my kit.

Live-text-ifying outlined text does seem like a heavy lift, and would likely never be possible in all cases, but even partial success would be welcome.
- it doesn't seem like it would be too bad for the fonts Adobe fonts can "legally" activate directly from its own cloud, and
- perhaps our AI robot friends could fetch and install "free" fonts on-the-fly, as long as
1. they told us what they were doing, and
2. they credited the source: foundry/designer/etc., and
3. they let us choose "embed for this doc only" or to fully install the font.
- accessing pricey fonts would be great too, but I can see that as being nearly impossible unless Adobe could get in (expensive) cahoots with a lot of disparate entities, many of whom are either competitors or just cranky jerks.

Re: "Ability to lock objects to a character/glyph of a live text, allowing users to change the text (properties) while the object stays locked into the character."
I don't believe I'm currently frustrated by this, because I don't do a lot of "locking" in general. But here's a partially-related feature that I can't resist bringing up again, one which I would use very frequently:
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/31416682-allow-aligning-stroke-to-inside-and-outside-of-tex
Ironically, it looks like I made the comment below exactly six years ago, May 30, 2018!
"I made the leap to Illustrator after many years using CorelDRAW, and this feature is one of maybe six that I still miss."
... my workaround is to make a copy of the text and drag it off to the side in case I have to re-edit, then outline the text and apply the stroke to the outside. Of course, any edits from that point forward have to be re-created from the "backup" copy I dragged off of the artboard, and that's inefficient. And to add insult to injury, InDesign aligns to the outside by default, which I'm sure makes Illustrator jealous.

I hope that helps.

Cheers!

Mike

I would love this feature. Working for a label printer, I can work around most of the issues with placing a pdf or ai file and flattening transparencies, but on files that have multiple layers (art / white ink / spot uv) you cannot outline the fonts and keep hidden layers at the same time. Would love a global "outline all missing fonts" option upon file open.

And another way to place a PDF with outlined fonts: https://note.com/sttk3com/n/n81b2e87c275e

Is it just the way i'm reading it or does this totally miss the point of the request?
The request was asking for the option to outline text when opening a file where the fonts don't already exist on the system (as you would do when flattening and converting text to outlines), this seems to be the opposite converting outlined text back to an editable font based text?

This is going to be super useful for client-provided artwork that has Type 1/postscript fonts in live text that doesn't need to change.

you can open an AI file in Acrobat
- then open the Flattener preview
- check the box next to "convert all text to outlines"
- click "apply"
- save the ai as a pdf
- open the pdf in Adobe illustrator

done
(but it would be best if Adobe Illustrator had an option to do it while opening the file)

Also relates to this freshly added request by Adam:
Place embedded pdf Link with Option to Convert all text as outlines
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/45690283

+1 please add this

If you open a PDF and it shows the proper font. but you open it in illustrator and it cries that font isnt available. but font data is in the PDF. would be nice to have an option to Import Text as Curves using PDF font data

There is also another way to get outlined fonts in imported PDF — to apply a fixup in Acrobat.

If all you need is the font's vectors, you can place the PDF into an open illustrator file and then use Object > flatten transparency to outline the fonts.

Voting though, because you and another user had a very similar idea and I believe this would still be useful.

That said, Illustrator is not and was never intended to be a PDF viewer/editor. Opening PDF's in illustrator should always be a last resort.

I'd love for Illustrator to, upon opening a PDF file, offer a simple "yes or no" dialog option where it promts to convert text to shapes/outlines before opening.

In case fonts are missing or are displayed incorrectly due to differences in the fonts installed and the fonts used in the PDF-files. Now I have to do this by converting to outlines in Acrobat, first, and then open the converted PDF into Illustrator.

Love to see such a feature!

Ok, I found the solution. Managed to explore the illustrator app properly, :)

@Mike Brice this is a great tip. Thank you!

I've found that placing a PDF into an open Ai file and flattening the transparency will do the trick most times.

USE FLEXI SIGN PRO, it does this.

I would like to see this as well. but.. I don't think fonts are embedded into ai files if pdf is off.
so unless you save with PDF on which we don't for 99% of the files we work on, they your out of luck without the actual font.
next..
I believe there is a flavor of pdf that you can export with acrobat that will outline fonts.. Don't remember how but I remember something about it.
good luck..
PS.. I would also love a outline on open/import as well.