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eelliottkcd
Participant
March 24, 2011
Answered

Framemaker fonts unavailable

  • March 24, 2011
  • 4 replies
  • 7427 views

Hello,

We are transitioning FM users from windows xp sp3 to windows 7 64bit. Our FM users have been upgraded from FM7 to FM 10. We are completely stuck with FM missing all types of fonts. We have copied the fonts and installed from winxp machine to windows 7 and are still having major issues with fonts. The users have adobe 7.0 full installed and we are running msoffice 2010 32bit.  We also had to upgrade our print servers to 64bit drivers.  For example arial is one such issue:

Couldn’t open CoverPage.fmThe "Arial Black Bolded" Font is not available.
"Arial Black Heavy" will be used in this session.
The "Arial Black" Font is not available.
"Arial Black Heavy" will be used in this session.
The "Arial Black Bolded" Font is not available.
"Arial Black Heavy" will be used in this session.
The "Arial Black" Font is not available.
"Arial Black Heavy" will be used in this session.
The "Arial Black Bolded" Font is not available.
"Arial Black Heavy" will be used in this session.
The "Arial Black" Font is not available.
"Arial Black Heavy" will be used in this session.
The "Arial Black Bolded" Font is not available.
"Arial Black Heavy" will be used in this session.
The "Arial Black" Font is not available.
"Arial Black Heavy" will be used in this session.
Couldn’t open CoverPage.fm

We have tried unchecking the Preferences > remember missing fonts name" option and this did not work. We would appreciate any assistance with FM fonts as we are at a standstill. thank you

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Van Kurtz

    ok here's a little more info about the issue at hand for us

    If we had an "unavailable/missing font" issue with just one of the files within a book that would be an easy fix. However, for example, we have a few books that have over 75 files within those books, therefore opening every file to save the whole book as a PDF get's to be very tedious. And even if we opened all the files & clear the message (as stated above) and then create the PDF book, when I reopen the book the next time to revise it & to save it as a PDF, the "unavailable/missing font" issue will be an issue again and I'll have to open each individual file just to save it as a PDF.

    Seems like using Frame to it's fullest potential in creating PDF books as we have done in previous versions is lost if we have to create the book in PDF with all the files open within that particular book. Currently this issue is an isolated issue with only a few files when using Frame 7.0 in xp & we currently use the work-around as described above, however, now that we are transferring to Frame 10, it appears to be throughout all the files, which is well over 500 files within the system.  Any further suggestions are welcomed. Thank you!


    Currently this issue is an isolated issue with only a few files when using Frame 7.0 in xp

    If you know which files have the missing fonts, then you need open only those files. It is not necessary to open all 75 files in the book. The point is to get around the message before creating the PDF. The only way to do that is open the file first so that you can respond to the message. Ultimately, you need to fix the missing font problem, either install the missing font (if possible) or replace it with another font. If you are happy with the PDF made with the font that replaces the missing font, then there is no reason to maintain a file in the missing font state.

    4 replies

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    Anonymous
    April 1, 2011

    For follow-up, here's a fairly recent Adobe kb article about missing fonts in FM:

    FrameMaker produces error: “Document uses unavailable fonts

    http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/529/cpsid_52907.html

    A
    Anonymous
    March 30, 2011

    Here's an earlier forum thread about missing Arial Black Heavy, it's pre-FM10 era, but there still might be something useful in it:

    http://forums.adobe.com/thread/418848

    A
    AIDbv32
    Participant
    March 30, 2011

    I am experiencing exact the same problem and I have not got a clue how to solve it. Initally I installed Frame 10 on a brand new 64 bit PC, and dicoverd the problems as mentioned by eelliottkcd. Great, so I tried about everything I could think of, including replacing all Arial Black text I could find with Helvetica Black  , and in a desperate attempt to solve this, I moved back to my old 32 bit XP professional PC with Frame 8.

    Now the document doesn't give the "missing font" message when I open the document, but when I try to " Save as PDF" the error log tells me it can't save due to " you guessedit, the fact that it has missing fonts.

    If I only knew WHAT fonts are missing..........

    The " Save as PDF doesn't work either........".

    I now have decided to convert all my Frame 10 docu back to the oriiginal Frame 8 and just bin Frame 10. Thank God it took me only 3 weeks and 1 rather simple book file to draw this conclusion.

    I strongly feel Adobe lost the plot, and, for what it is worth, a happy customer.

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    eelliottkcdAuthor
    Participant
    March 30, 2011

    Same issue here and we can't save either to pdf. I'm torn because this is a new o/s environment and i originally had FM 7.0 installed and had the same problems. We upgraded to 10 to be win 7 compliant and FM is holding up the works.

    I think i might have to run virtual xp mode just for framemaker which will present tons of support issues with two o/s,but the business is putting pressure on me to fix the problem.

    Van Kurtz
    Van Kurtz
    Inspiring
    March 30, 2011

    AIDbv32 and eelliottkcd,

    If you have missing font problems and need to create a PDF, open all the documents in the book, clearing any messages about missing fonts. And then create your PDF by printing to Adobe PDF printer. FrameMaker should not complain about missing fonts during the printing process, because the files are already open.

    A
    Anonymous
    March 24, 2011

    Whenever you see a property name in FM that's "-ed", i.e. Bolded or Obliqued, that's an indication that there is a mismatch between the "real" fonts and the specific property (bold or italic) and what FM thinks could possibly be available if you were to move the file(s) to as system that did have the mythical font.

    Instead of just saying that there is no such font as "Arial Black Bold", (because there isn't, there is no Bold face of Arial Black),  FM "helpfully"  used to apply an artificial bolding to the Black font, analogous to the old days of double-striking keys on a typewriter, and then change the name by adding the "-ed" to the font. Same with the Oblique face, the face was genetically modified to an italic look and the name changed to "Obliqued". Double ick.

    Compounding the problem, MS changed the font naming conventions for Arial Black and Arial Narrow in XP SP2/SP3  too:

    Text that has the font set to Arial Black and the font style set to bold may change so that the font is set to Arial Black and the font style is set to talic when you open the document on a computer that is running Windows XP

    Hotfix Corrects Arial Narrow Problem on Windows

    As to how to fix the problem, there are several different approaches outlined in older posts on this forum; unfortunately, though, the search engine for this forum specifically doesn't seem to be working correctly for me so I can't pull up any references at the moment. This is the box that searches the FM forum specifically:

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    eelliottkcdAuthor
    Participant
    March 29, 2011

    Thank you Sheila I did try all the tricks. I copied the arial black font from a windows xp sp3 machine but it appe

    ars i have another issue. The problem is this. I open the said fm document and it states The "Arial Black" Font is not available.

    It will be replaced by "Arial Black Heavy", so i click OK but in fact it does not replace the font with Arial Black heavy .

    I've tested it this way. The section of the page with the  problem is showing as  Arial "regular, bold, black".

    1) I highlight the section and change the font to Arial Black which defaults to Heavy. It's changes the font.

    I have limited knowledge of framemaker but if it states it's going to replace the font in the document why doesn't it? Is this because the user was incorrectly using framemaker? In this instance do  we have to manually update every document. Thanks again for the assistance

    Van Kurtz
    Van Kurtz
    Inspiring
    March 29, 2011

    In the Preferences > General, the Remember missing fonts box is selected, which is typically what you want. When this box is checked and you open a document with missing fonts, FrameMaker issues the message but replaces the fonts ONLY while the document is open, not permanently. The purpose of this feature is to allow someone who does not have the font to edit a document created by someone who DOES have the font.

    If you DO want the font change to be permanent, that is after you way yes to the missing font message, then clear the checkbox, open the document, and save it. Then check the box again. As stated above, this feature protects you from inadvertently reformatting a document due to a missing font.

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