FontBegone: replace fonts by outlines in PDF files

If you have python installed in a different location, you may create a symbolic link to it with the following Terminal command (it won't do anything if there's already a file /usr/local/bin/python):
sudo ln -s `which python` /usr/local/bin/python

Installation

• Download the zipped Application FontBegone.zip.
• If not done automatically, unzip the file (by double-clicking on FontBegone.zip).
• Move the resulting FontBegone to your Applications folder (or anywhere you prefer).
• In Terminal, create a preferences file named .fontbegone to set the correct Path for the ghostscript executable. This can be done automatically using the one-line command echo "gsBin = '"`which gs`"'" > ~/.fontbegone.
• Optional: On my computer, I added the FontBegone application to the toolbar of my Finder windows, see this screenshot (FontBegone is not the only home-made utility I've placed there, as you can tell by the weird-looking icons):
  
  To do this, just Command-drag the application icon into the top part of any open Finder window (to position it properly, keep dragging until you see a green plus sign indicating that dropping the icon is allowed).

Usage

There are two ways of using FontBegone:

• Select one or more PDF files, and drag them onto the FontBegone icon .
  While the application is working on the conversion, a spinning gear will appear in your menu bar (top right). Depending on the file size, this process can take some time. When finished, FontBegone will have created a new file for each input file, differing in filename by the addition of "-nofont.pdf". So an input file "paper.pdf" will be converted to "paper-nofont.pdf" in the same directory. These output files will usually be larger than the input files. That shouldn't be too surprising, given the fact that each character of text is now drawn as a little picture!
• FontBeGone doesn't just convert entire files, but also PDF images copied from arbitrary sources. For example, use the Select Tool of your favorite PDF reader application to pick a rectangle in a PDF document, and copy it to the Pasteboard. Before attempting to paste into Illustrator, just tap the icon of FontBegone to activate the application (a single click is enough if you have the icon in the Finder toolbar or on the Dock). Again you will see a spinning gear in the menu bar until the conversion has finished. Now the converted PDF will be on the Pasteboard and you can insert it into Illustrator without the dreaded font warnings. With this approach, you only need a single click between copying and pasting a PDF from any source to Illustrator.

More information (not required reading)

• There are some older versions of FontBegone which don't allow conversion on the Pasteboard:
  1. FontBegone (Leopard and above)
  2. FontBegone (Tiger and below)
• The program needs to execute the shell command gs. These must be installed, otherwise FontBegone will exit without doing anything.
• To insure that FontBegone finds the shell commands, the PATH variable must be set correctly.
• Troubleshooting, in case the conversion doesn't work:
  1. Make sure you can execute gs from the command line. The output of gs --version should be larger than 9.15.
  2. If the last step works, then the path specified in .fontbegone may be incorrect.
• Here is the python script that I use for the conversion:

  import os,sys,tempfile,shutil
  from AppKit import *
  from Foundation import *
  
  def doconversion(inname,outnamepdf):
  	r1=os.spawnlp(os.P_WAIT,gsBin,gsBin, "-sOutputFile="+outnamepdf,"-dNoOutputFonts","-sDEVICE=pdfwrite","-q", "-dbatch", "-dNOPAUSE", "-dQUIET", inname, "-c", "quit")
  	return r1
  
  rr=64
  tmpdir = tempfile.mkdtemp("","fontBegone","/tmp")
  inname=os.path.join(tmpdir,"infile.pdf")
  outnamepdf=os.path.join(tmpdir,"outfile.pdf")
  preferences=os.path.join(os.environ["HOME"],".fontbegone")
  if os.path.isfile(preferences):
          prefscopy=os.path.join(tmpdir,"fontbegonePrefs.py")
          sys.path.append(tmpdir)
          shutil.copyfile(preferences,prefscopy)
          import fontbegonePrefs
          gsBin = fontbegonePrefs.gsBin
  else:
          gsBin = "/usr/local/bin/gs"
  
  if len(sys.argv) > 1:
  	for arg in sys.argv[1:]:
  		imgFileName = os.path.abspath(arg)
  		if os.path.isfile(imgFileName):
  			[imgDir,imgName] = os.path.split(imgFileName)
  			outFileName = os.path.join(imgDir,os.path.splitext(imgName)[0]+"-nofont.pdf")
  			sys.stderr.write("converting "+outFileName)
  			shutil.copyfile(imgFileName,inname)
  			rr = doconversion(inname,outnamepdf)
  			if rr==0:
  				shutil.copyfile(outnamepdf,outFileName)
  			else:
  				sys.stderr.write("Conversion of file failed")
  		else:
  			sys.stderr.write("non-existent input file")
  				
  else:
  	board=NSPasteboard.generalPasteboard()
  	result = board.dataForType_(NSPDFPboardType)
  	if result:
  		result.writeToFile_atomically_(inname,1)
  		rr = doconversion(inname,outnamepdf)
  		if rr==0:
  			content=NSData.dataWithContentsOfFile_(outnamepdf)
  			board.declareTypes_owner_([NSPDFPboardType], None)
  			board.setData_forType_(content, NSPDFPboardType)
  	else:
  		sys.stderr.write( "Nothing to convert.")
  
  try:
  	os.remove(outnamepdf)
  	os.remove(prefscopy)
  	os.remove(inname)
  except:
  	sys.stderr.write("Conversion failed")
  
  shutil.rmtree(tmpdir)
  		
  sys.exit(rr)