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tlmurray23
tlmurray23
Inspiring
October 24, 2010
Answered

Problems with Adobe Pi Std

  • October 24, 2010
  • 1 reply
  • 13467 views

Adobe Pi Std (AdobePiStd.otf), the OpenType replacement for Zapf Dingbats, doesn't seem to be working at all. It's installed by many applications and thus many instances are scattered around my Windows and Mac disks. They are the same version 1.004 and they behave the same:

  • In Windows XP and Mac 10.6.4 applications no glyphs appear (Word, FrameMaker, Illustrator, various type tools, you name it)
  • Microsoft's OpenType Font Validator indicates some flaws in adhering to standards, but in the end, it says it can't be rasterized
  • The tool also says that in one place it's indicated to NOT be a symbolic font, and in another, it is.
  • Both platforms have had their caches cleaned and AdobeFnt??.lst files removed.

Anyone else see this? The fact that it doesn't work in either platform, and that the validator can't rasterize it, indicates it's a defective font ... but then again, it would have been caught long before today.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Dov Isaacs

    It is not a replacement font for the Type 1 Zapf Dingbats font.

    It has Unicode-based encoding of its glyphs. Unlike the older Type 1 Zapf Dingbats font, the characters are not mapped to standard ASCII characters that can be readily keyed. You need to access them out of a character pallette such as those provided in the Adobe CS programs or the Insert Symbol feature of Microsoft Office applications.

    The encoding of Adobe Pi Std is similar to that of Zapf Dingbats Std, also Unicode-encoded.

              - Dov

    1 reply

    Dov Isaacs
    Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
    Legend
    October 24, 2010

    It is not a replacement font for the Type 1 Zapf Dingbats font.

    It has Unicode-based encoding of its glyphs. Unlike the older Type 1 Zapf Dingbats font, the characters are not mapped to standard ASCII characters that can be readily keyed. You need to access them out of a character pallette such as those provided in the Adobe CS programs or the Insert Symbol feature of Microsoft Office applications.

    The encoding of Adobe Pi Std is similar to that of Zapf Dingbats Std, also Unicode-encoded.

              - Dov

    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    tlmurray23
    tlmurray23Author
    Inspiring
    October 26, 2010

    What got me here is that I had swapped out Type 1 Universal News and Zapf Dingbats with UniversalStd NewswithCommPi and AdobePiStd in OpenType -- I read somewhere the AdobePiStd was the Zapf replacement, but now I found ZapfDingbatsStd.  Nothing has changed.

    OpenType Universal and ZapfDingbats both behave similarly:

    • In Mac Word for example, they appear in some font lists, but if I type a character, Word changes instantly to a roman face.
    • They do not show up at all in the Insert > Symbol lists.
    • In Illustrator they can be selected, but the dialogs "snap" back to some other roman face.

    For a face like Zapf Dingbats, if I have a document using Type 1 Zapf Dingbats, which has (for example) a shadowed box at keyboard letter o, if I swap it out with ZapfDingbatsStd, will I not see that box when I open the document next?

    Fortunately I have the Type 1's handy. I'm just not getting this.  I'll play with these OTFs later.

    tlmurray23
    tlmurray23Author
    Inspiring
    September 11, 2011

    Do you think, then, that the maker.ini entry is incorrect? Even if the Type 1 glyph positions don't map to the same spots in the OpenType Unicode maps, I would think Adobe would have at least mapped T1 Zapf Dingbats to ZaphDingbatsStd.

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