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Participant
September 21, 2022
Question

Hyphen turned into a + sign

  • September 21, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 1595 views

Customer sent in a 24-page book in Illustrator, and we had no issues with fonts when exported as PDF. Later some edits were requested, and we failed to notice that all hyphens turned into + signs. Customer is upset, and so far I don't have an answer.

 

Using Illustrator 26.5, font application is Connect by Suitcase.

 

Any ideas?

This topic has been closed for replies.

4 replies

Participant
November 16, 2022

Hello!

Just to chime in: we're using Connect Fonts by Extensis as well and - by now - Illustrator 27.0

Our Fonts are synced through the Connect Fonts Cloud so everybody uses the exact same Font (Helvetica LT Pro, OpenType - PS). We've noticed the same thing happening: some times hyphens turn to + signs. Funny enough if you close and reopen the file, therefore let Connect Fonts disable and re-enable the font it gets fixed… sometimes. Some other times we have to open and close the same file multiple times.

It's really frustrating because we deal with a large amount of text on a daily basis and sometimes we don't notice the + signs straight away. It's always hard to explain to our clients...w

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 16, 2022

Then maybe you will have to talk to Extensis about that issue.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 21, 2022

This sounds like an encoding issue. Are you sure everyone is using the exact same font/format from the same source. These old Bitsream fonts are "all over the place" these days.

Mylenium
Legend
September 21, 2022

Without actual system info, screenshots, info about fonts used, language settings, PDF presets and all that jazz we honestly can't tell you much. To me this sounds like a language issue where an automatically inserted character changes depending on what the system is set to and/ or a font doesn't have the proper glyph, so it gets substituted. that would be the first two things to check.

 

Mylenium

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 21, 2022

Can you give us some more details? Like:

Which font?

What kind of edits have been made?

Was there a change in the font itself, like: did you switch from T1 to OTF?

Were there switches from Mac to Windows?

 

Does Extensis have anything on this issue?

Participant
September 21, 2022

The font is Swiss BT, which Suitcase sees as Open Type - TT. What is confusing to me is we were made aware of issue yesterday. When file was opened yesterday, I saw all the + signs where hyphens should be. When I open file today, the reflow of text is different and there are no hyphens or + signs. No fonts were added or unloaded, so I'm not getting consistent results from day to day.

Kevin Stohlmeyer
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 21, 2022

Have you confirmed that the font is permanently Active in the Extensis app? Dont let it auto activate when you open.