Fonts

In the "old days" we used pdfs as an accurate snapshot of the page or pages, with no loss of validity. Today when we distill a document the fonts are not captured in any way, so a client (or a printer!) often does not have an accurate image of the page. It's all about fonts, but we're not trying to steal fonts, we're trying to get our work done!
What can we do, other than to "create outlines" in either Illustrator or InDesign? What if that's not an option?