When I open Animate project (previously created on Mac) on my Windows PC, text elements changes

[LLadislav]

Hi everyone,

could you please help me with the following issue?

I have previously googled the topic, hoping to find the solution, but it seems to me that I am the first person ever to face this problem 🙂

Here is the problem:

My colleague works on Mac, while I work on PC with Windows. We both work with latest version of Adobe Animate.

When my Mac-colleague creates an Adobe Animate project, he can save it and open it again without a problem.

BUT: When I open the same project, I see that all text elements changed. It seems that text lines moved down and line spacing is bigger.

Here is an example.

This is how the project looks like on Mac.

This is how the same project looks like, when it is opened on Windows.

The problem remain swhen opening project both Mac→PC or PC→Mac. I mean, when my Mac-colleague opens Animate project previously created on my Windows PC, the text elements change aswell.

This issue is quite a big deal for us, since it makes any cooperation quite difficult...

It could be caused by the font file, but we tried this with many different fonts and the problem remains. Only Arial seemed to be OK for both of us...

Has anyone ever faced the same problem? Are there any solutions?

Thank you for your help.

[kglad]

that looks like your leading (line spacing) is changing. 

i don't know why that's occurring, but you can adjust that in the properties panel.

[resdesign]

In my experience there are always differences for fonts between PCs and Macs even if the font name is the same. I have been working with Mac people for years and I am a PC user. I suppose it is the way fonts are created but I am not exactly sure. I know that it happens for AI, PSP, and ANCC for sure.

But as kglad says fortunately you can tweak fonts with the font panel until you have what you want. Of course, now, what will happen when you co-worker opens it on his Mac again, would be an interesting thing to know!

[LLadislav]

I think the problem is not with the leading / line spacing. As you can see in the pictures, line spacing value is 0 on PC and 0 on Mac aswell... But on PC it looks different.

You are right, I can adjust the text elements to "fix" the project. However, this means that when my co-worker opens it again on Mac, his text elements are wrong... It seems there is "correct" linespacing value for Mac (for example 0) and another "correct" linespacing value for PC (for example 5), but there is nothing that suits both.

We often work with 10+ projects at the same time, each of them has 10+ text element files included.

Therefore, we can't manually change all text elements - it would take hours 😞

We checked that we installed the font from the same font file.

But it seems that on PC, there is some empty space above every line, which causes the whole problem...

(as you can see, that space above the line should not be there).

[Superfontimes]

I'm having the same exact problem, did you ever find a solution to the issue?

[LLadislav]

Unfortunately not, as far as I know.

I contacted Adobe support about two years ago, and during 2019/2020 I spend about 5 months trying to solve this issue with them together.

On 15th April 2020, I got this statement from Adobe (I was solving one more issue with them at the same conversation):

"Both the issues have been reported to the product team and it would be in the top bucket list for fix. However, we cannot comment over the time period when the fix would land.

Till then I would apologize for the inconvenience caused to you and proceed with the workaround for now."

I have been using Animate 2019 version until today, but I don't have any message from my colleagues about the fix.

Do you experience the issue in Animate 2022?

[kglad]

the only solution i've found is to do all work on a mac or all work on a pc (depending on the client's font preferences).

[LLadislav]

Well this might be a solution, but it is the cause of the issue at the same time 🙂

As I¨ve described in the original thread, I need to cooperate on my Animate projects with my colleagues, so the Mac-Win compatibility is crucial here...

I don't believe we are the only team here experiencíng this problem...

[Superfontimes]

Yep I have the same issue going from my Mac OS 10.15 to a Windows 10 PC (and vise versa) using Animate 2022. 

Ha, a priority but it's been almost a year. Guess I won't wait out for a fix and just use one or the other. Must be the way the fonts are rendered on the different OSs. Does it happen with every font or just a specifice font?

[LLadislav]

In my case, there are fonts that don't cause this issue. Usually these are the basic ones such as Arial, but I've used even some custom fonts which were OK on Mac-Win at the same time.

Anyway, what is important to say, is that this is not a font-OS issue, but font-Animate issue. When I take the same font file which causes the issue in Animate, use it in a Photoshop project and cooperate with my Mac colleague, this problem never happens.
It's a pity that what works in one Adobe app, does not work in the other one... 😕

[Superfontimes]

I think it might be the same issue people have with XD, the font engine returns different values on the backend for the line spacing. Wish there was a way for us to adjust this:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-xd-discussions/roboto-font-from-google-has-different-heights-on...

[Superfontimes]

Actually nevermind line spacing, it looks like there is a little bit of hidden padding at the top of the Windows text box, pushing the text down a bit. On Mac, the text is vertically aligned to the top of the text box, where on Windows the text is pushed down some and doesnt touched the top of the text box.

[LLadislav]

I agree, the issue looks similar.

However, in the post you shared it seems that the text height value changes (from 16 to 17, for example.). In our case, I think only the font appearance changes...

"it looks like there is a little bit of hidden padding at the top of the Windows text box"

I agree, see my picture above.

Anyway, this is something that should be solved.

After 2 years, I contacted Adobe support again and I am waiting for their reply.

[babypopdipstick]

Any chance you've heard any progress on this? Driving me crazy!

[LLadislav]

Unfortunately not.

It seems that that the original case is closed, therefore I got no reply.

I will reopen the case eventually and send this thread to the support.

But my expectations are low, see the reply from Adobe in this Adobe XD thread.

I think the issue is quite similar.

[Charlie Bickett · Accepted solution]

Hi! I just responded to that similar issue a user was having with Adobe XD, I have a solution for this! This will be mostly quoted from my reply there.

Modern fonts include unique values for Accent/Decent on both Windows & Unix. These properties cause weird rendering differences if they don't match. ( No idea why they still do this... ) An easy way to fix this issue is editing the font file with the opensource font editor, fontForge!

Upon opening your font, navigage to Element/Font Info...

Next click on OS/2, and the Metrics tab. These values cause the differences in rendering.

From here, we'll want to change the Win values to match the HHead values, aswell as disabling all offsets.

Win Ascent = HHead Ascent
Win Descent = Absolute Value of HHead Descent

Then confirm the edit with "OK".

Finally, go to File/Generate Fonts... and export your fixed font!

Install this same font on both computers, and see if the issue is gone!

The artists at my work had to deal with this issue for years, and as far as I can tell it fully fixes the issue!

Below is a .FLA made first on Mac, moved to Windows with a before and after of the same font. Works for me!