I think that depends on the setting. If that is not the case by default, users can override the default by dvipdfmx -f dlbase14.map ... In TeX Live, Master/texmf/dvipdfm/dvipdfmx.cfg includes dvipdfm.map, which has the entries for the base14, as in pcrr8r 8r ucrr8a So I think the base14 fonts should be embedded by default in TL. Thanks, Karl