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Fonts "Not Loaded", yet they are?


panthermac

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I've been having lots of error messages about fonts from FusionPro when composing files. Says Font "XYZ" isn't loaded, default substituted, yet when I preview the composed output, it's rendered in the correct fonts? Uploading the output doesn't work (missing fonts...), so I end up spending a LOT of time activating/deactivating, rebooting, reloading fonts, etc.. until after an hour or two it finally decides to start to work.

 

Natch, then a customer comes in w/ a rush job, and I have to blow away my entire work on the font issue, but I'd digress....

 

I'm using LinoType FontExplorerX on a Mac OS X 10.4.11,and just upgraded to the latest FusionPro 6.0P1f build earlier today (still getting those same types of errors).

 

Is there a FAQ, or troubleshooting guide, or some suggestions on the best way to manage fonts, and how to react to the various error messages. I'm particularly frustrated working w/ the software when it declares fonts are missing, that all my other programs are able to find just find (aka: Quark, Illustator, etc.). I've even tried loading some of them into the system fonts folder (or user's fonts folder), yet Acrobat/Printable's still won't see them (even after a reboot!)

 

Thanks for the help.

 

- Mac

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Whenever you install new fonts on your machine, you need to do a "Load Fonts" in FusionPro and then restart Acrobat (and on Mac, the FusionPro app) in order to use the new fonts in a composition. You shouldn't need to reboot the machine. If, after doing a "Load Fonts," you still don't see the fonts, you can open up the fonts.err file (in the "/Library/Preferences/Printable/FusionPro/Fonts" folder on Mac) and look for references to those fonts, and then either post those results here or send them to Support for analysis.

 

As to the composed output being "rendered in the correct fonts" even when you get an error message, are you sure that actually font is really being used? You can turn on font embedding, recompose to PDF, and then look at Document Properties on the output, in the Fonts tab, and see if those fonts are actually being used. It's also possible that a font may be present in your background (template) PDF, in which case it's just passed through in composition, whether you have that font installed and loaded or not; only variable text actually being set down by FusionPro is affected by what fonts you have loaded.

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If, after doing a "Load Fonts," you still don't see the fonts, you can open up the fonts.err file (in the "/Library/Preferences/Printable/FusionPro/Fonts" folder on Mac) and look for references to those fonts, and then either post those results here or send them to Support for analysis.

 

Thanks Dan! Tried that, like I said, I even usually reboot, and then I still have troubles. Didn't know about the .err file, good info!

Checked it, I've got a lot of:

 

"Error: Could not get Font Format for Minion. Font skipped."

 

Showing up in the log, but no mention of the font in particular I'm having trouble w/ today (VAG Rounded). Tried doing a "Find" on "VAG", and "Rounded", and skimmed the log visually.. nothing. The only thing that stuck out to my eye was:

 

"*** Error 5; val 2 on readPostTable() line 2567 of ttfps.cpp

*** Error 5; val 2 on readPostTable() line 2626 of ttfps.cpp"

 

Dunno if that's related any?

 

 

whether you have that font installed and loaded or not; only variable text actually being set down by FusionPro is affected by what fonts you have loaded.

 

I understand that part.. Fonts should be getting embedded via the source application when created (InDesign, Quark, etc.), but I keep getting that message. I'll have to try checking the doc. properties next time it comes up.

 

The only (halfway) consistent solution I've found is to turn off all but the minimum required, clean all caches, and reboot. They're usually present when the machine comes back, but even then, I've had to monkey around a few times.

 

Thanks again for the help!

 

- Mac

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Wait -- exactly what error message are you trying to resolve here?

 

First you said:

I've been having lots of error messages about fonts from FusionPro when composing files. Says Font "XYZ" isn't loaded, default substituted,

 

Then you attached a graphic with an error saying something about, "Font <some name> bold style is not loaded, using normal style..."

 

These are not the same messages!

 

The "font not loaded, default substituted" message means you don't have any style (face) of that font (family) loaded. The "style (bold or italic) not loaded, using normal style" message means you have a font in that family loaded, but not that particular face (style). These issues are somewhat related, but they're not the same.

 

So, I have to ask you to please be as specific as possible about exactly what error message you're getting. I think that it would have been both simpler and more accurate to just click "View Log" and then copy-and-paste the actual text of the error message instead of attaching a screenshot with only part of it, or paraphrasing it as in your original post.

 

Anyway, if you're really getting the "style (bold or italic) not loaded, using normal style" message, then you may indeed still be getting some text in your job output in the normal style of that font in your output. But there's some place in the job where you're asking for a different style that's not available.

 

This is a consequence of the way FusionPro handles fonts. Because of the HTML-like markup that FusionPro uses, with <b> and <i> tags to change the "style" or "face" of a font, it's really referencing font "families" instead of individual font files. Most font families contain four styles: regular, bold, italic, and bold + italic, so any combination is valid. However, some fonts on your system may not contain all four styles, in which case FusionPro won't be able to access every possible combination. This is especially common in the case of a font with the word "bold" or "italic" in its family name. (Should there really be a font family called "Swiss 721 Bold BT", or should there be a family called something like "Swiss 721 BT" with a bold style? There are two schools of thought about this in digital typography. A full philosophical discussion of this is beyond the scope of this forum, however.)

 

So, if your output appears correctly, you can obviously consider this message as an informational warning, and ignore it. However, if you want to avoid the message entirely, you will need to either (a) modify your job to not invoke the "missing" styles of that font, (b) install all the relevant styles, or © use a different font with all relevant styles included.

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Mac,

Are using VAGRounded-Bold in any of the variable fields or is it just embedded into the background?

 

If you are using it in one of the variable fields, are you hitting the "b" button in the "variable text editor" and applying it to be bold, even though its using the font VAGRounded-Bold.

 

 

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