How can I share a PowerPoint presentation with custom fonts?

PowerPoint How To  

Can I share a PowerPoint Presentation containing customized fonts with others who do not have the font installed on their computer?

This post is part of our hints and tips for standard PowerPoint features.  PPT Productivity is a time saving add-in for PowerPoint.  If you’d like to boost your productivity and stop wasting time on alignment, formatting and finding slides to reuse then please visit our homepage and download our free trial today!

Some organizations create their own unique/ bespoke fonts or typeface as part of their brand identity. For example, McKinsey & Company use Bower typeface and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) use Henderson font.

Having a customized font or typeface helps your slides stand out from the crowd. If you are only sharing your presentations in pdf format, the customized font does not generally create any issues. However, if you need to share the PowerPoint presentation in an editable format with people who do not have the customized fonts loaded on their machines (Clients for example!), the result may be that your slides do not appear the way you intended them to.

Luckily Microsoft have included a solution. You can embed your selected fonts in your PowerPoint presentation before sharing.

How can I embed customized fonts in PowerPoint presentations?

Embedding a font in a PowerPoint presentation is simple. First, go to the File tab and select ‘Options’, at the bottom of the list. Navigate to the Save menu, then to the embed fonts option, which is under the group Preserve Fidelity when sharing this presentation. Refer to the screenshot below for guidance to find the embed fonts option.

Screenshot of the PowerPoint Options Embed fonts in file option how to preserve fidelity in PowerPoint
Screenshot of PowerPoint Options Embed fonts in file option to preserve fidelity

Note that once you check the checkbox to embed fonts in the PowerPoint file, there are two options:

  • Embed only the characters used in the presentation: This option will help reduce the file size of your PowerPoint presentation by embedding only the existing characters in the presentation.
  • Embed all characters: This option is recommended if you intend to share the PowerPoint presentation for editing by other people.

We recommend selecting the option for ‘Embed all characters’ so that anyone editing the PowerPoint presentation has access to the font.

Once you have made the selection, click OK and make sure your presentation is saved. Now when you share your PowerPoint presentation, others will be able to edit the presentation with access to the custom fonts you have used.


Chief Productivity Officer Lee-Ann has been working with PowerPoint for more than 18 years. Lee-Ann was initially an office manager and assistant, then a Production Specialist at Boston Consulting Group. Lee-Ann is now Chief Productivity Officer at PPT Productivity. Lee-Ann nominates PPT Productivity's Remember/Set Size & Position feature as one of her favourite.

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