How to convert text in a PDF file from fonts/text to outlines?

Question

I have PDF graphic in which I would like to have fonts removed. All other properties of the file should remain (such as size, etc). The output file should be in PDF as well. The text itself should be converted to outlines.

Can I do it at the moment of including the PDF figure in pdftex document? Or can I perhaps use a magic ghostscript command?

Answer 1

(Originally posted as part of question by OP ronszon)

The solution to the problem was conversion from PDF to PS, PS to PDF and cropping final PDF file.

pdftops myfile.pdf
ps2pdf myfile.ps
pdfcrop myfile.pdf

Answer 2

In my case (pdftops 0.18.4, GPL Ghostscript 9.05) the resulting PDF following the above answer still contained the fonts and the text was not converted to curves. However, the answer I found at this Malayian LaTeX User Group site worked for me. This is the script I used:

#!/bin/sh

if [ "x$1" = "x" -o "x$2" = "x" ]; then
    echo Usage: `basename "$0"` "<input.pdf>" "<output.pdf>" >&2
    exit 1
fi

gs -sDEVICE=pswrite -dNOCACHE -sOutputFile=- -q \
   -dbatch -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET "$1" -c quit | ps2pdf - "$2"

Of course, a pdfcrop step can still be added if you need it.