Framemaker 2015 issue with losing italics in legacy files

Question

Our team just upgraded to FrameMaker 2015 (from FrameMaker 12). We're running into some issues where we lose italic formatting in existing files and templates, and/or the "Emphasis" character tag that we use to apply italic formatting does not work correctly.

For example, when I open our existing template in FrameMaker 2015, the "Emphasis" character tag is still defined correctly – it shows the "Italic" property in the "Angle" field. But, when I select a word or phrase and apply the "Emphasis" style, the text does not get italicized. Frame shows that the "Emphasis" tag has been applied, but the text is still roman (i.e., not italicized).

When I change the "Angle" property from "Italic" to "Kursiv" that seems to resolve the issue, but I'm not sure why.

We are also seeing inconsistent issues of italic formatting getting dropped altogether in existing files, or getting dropped just from cross-references, etc.

Are there any known issues with italic formatting in FrameMaker 2015? Or anything we might be doing that triggers this?

FYI: We are all on Windows 7.

Thanks in advance...

Arnis Gubins · Accepted Answer

Hi Arnis,I appreciate all your patient replies with this  . . . This has gotten me closer to a solution, I think, but I'm still not quite there...First, real quick, there was only a single instance of "kursiv" in either maker.ini file – it was in the "Angles" definition, which was identical for me to what you and Mike listed (including the order).This got me thinking though . . . I next tried removing a plug-in that we purchased for a prior version and then restarting Frame and creating a new blank document. (This plug-in loads at startup and uses an FM file that contains content from our templates.) I thought this did the trick. The default "Emphasis" character tag was now showing "Italic" by default instead of "Kursiv." And everything appeared to be working as it should – when I applied the "Emphasis" character tag, the text actually did get italicized (even when I changed the font to Akzidenz-Grotesk Pro).But then as soon as I opened existing files based on our templates, the italic issue was still there, as before.What's more, opening a legacy file seemed to change Frame's behavior for that session. That is, after opening the legacy file, I tabbed back over to the new, blank document I had started with. Now, when I checked the Emphasis tag, it was showing "Kursiv" as the angle instead of "Italic," as it had before.When I shut down Frame, then reopened it and started another new, blank document, the "Emphasis" tag and italic functionality continued to work properly until I opened a legacy document. Then it didn't work properly in any file.This makes me think the issue is with our templates somehow. I tried another MIF wash on the templates, but the issue persists. So strange...Thanks,Jason NicholsHave you checked what's in your templates? It could be that the plug-in (or perhaps another start-up initial script or a different plug-in) is loading something that leads to this behaviour. It sort of sounds like the template catalogs are getting (re-)imported at start-up to ensure a uniform behaviour in your workgroup.

Mike-Hardy · Answer

This might be a difference in the font configuration within the maker.ini file. This is found within the FrameMaker application. There is also a user-specific copy that can override the main settings. See the top of the main maker.ini file for details.

I'd investigate the following.

The Angles setting defines the vocabulary that is used for italicized fonts. This is the default for FM12:

;

; Definition of the font vocabulary:

; Angles, Variations: a list of the words.

; Weight: the list of words and the associated weight for Windows, if any.

;

Angles=Regular, Kursiv, Slanted, Oblique, Italic, Obliqued

Look for differences between FrameMaker 12 and 2015. Don't forget to check for overrides in your personal maker.ini files.

Also, search for Akzidenz-Grotesk in the files. Are there any settings in one file that are not in the other? Likewise for Kursiv.

Finally, the following might provide a workaround:

Quit FrameMaker 2015.
Open your personal FrameMaker 2015 maker.ini file in a text editor.
This file is typically in \Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\FrameMaker\<version>.
Add the following two lines:
[WindowsToFrameFontAliases]
AkzidenzGrotesque Pro, Italic, *=AkzidenzGrotesque Pro, Kursiv, *, Regular
(I'm assuming there isn't already a WindowsToFrameFontAliases section)
Save the maker.ini file
Restart FrameMaker 2015.

If necessary try this again, changing the first occurence of AkzidenzGrotesque Pro to any variation you can find displayed in Windows, or within the font file itself (e.g. AkzidenzGrotesque-Pro or AkzidenzGrotesquePro).

If this works, consider adding the setting to the main maker.ini file so it applies to all users.

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