Hopefully, one of these solutions will help you solve this problem, and PowerPoint will no longer complain, “This presentation cannot be edited because it contains a read-only embedded font. If you own a license for the missing font, or if you bought one, install it on your PowerPoint equipped system.

This way you have access to more than one version of PowerPoint on a single system. Then reinstall PowerPoint 2003 or another newer version. The only caveat apart from using extra hard disk space is that you will have to uninstall Office/PowerPoint 2003 or another newer version, and then install the older version. If you have an older version of PowerPoint on CD-ROM, you can install more than one version of PowerPoint on the same system.

Install an Additional, Older Version of PowerPoint.

If you do not have access to an older version of PowerPoint, request a friend or colleague to do it for you.

Also, change the font to something more generic using the Format | Replace Font option. Open the presentation again in PowerPoor 2002 and remove the “font embedding” option.

Remove Font Embedding in an Older Version.

Not surprisingly, this creates so many issues for users of PowerPoint everywhere. You cannot even replace the fonts and save a presentation to a new file. In PowerPoint 2003, Microsoft implemented an algorithm that does not allow you to edit any presentation that contains a restricted, embedded font that is not installed on your system. You could then replace the fonts and edit the presentation as required, and finally, save the presentation to a new file. PowerPoint on Windows has always enabled font embedding and versions before 2003 allowed you to open and view presentations even if you did not have the actual restricted and embedded fonts installed on a local machine. If you want to know if a particular font allows embedding, you can download Microsoft’s free Font Properties Extension. To identify which fonts allow embedding or otherwise, most fonts have some code attached to them which allows an application to know whether the font can be embedded or not. PowerPoint on Windows has always enabled font embedding and versions before 2003 allowed you to open and view presentations even if you did not have the actual restricted and embedded fonts installed on a local machine. Some of these companies do not mind if their fonts are embedded in presentations.

Fonts are created by various companies, commonly known as font foundries. Let’s start at the very beginning by discussing font licensing. Why does this happen? Is there a solution? PowerPoint tells you that “This presentation cannot be edited because it contains a read-only embedded font.” Now you open it in PowerPoint 2003, and you find you cannot edit the presentation.

Powerpoint for mac embedded fonts