Captivate 11.5.0.476 replaces missing fonts (which are not missing) with Tahoma

[ffami]

Hey!

Since the latest update, Captivate is akting me to replace "missing fonts" after opening a project.

The fonts aren't missing, I can see them working fine on the first slide.

It always misses Lucida Sans, which I don't use in my projects.

No matter which font I choose of even if I cancel, every font in my projects will be replaced by Tahoma.

I've tried opening projects with customers corporate fonts and projects which only use Arial, all of them get this message. Unit Pro for example.

The only option I have right now, is to let Captivate replace all of my fonts and put them back to what I used before manually.

After that it won't ask me to replace, but that can't be the way to go? This takes forever

I'm on macOS Mojave 10.14.4.

[Claire_a_bradshaw]

Hey - ok I followed your process - I signed out of Captivate and signed back in - same thing. Then I signed out again and waited a few minutes before signing in again. Then an alert came up in the task bar stating 2 fonts (maybe more) had been activated. Maybe on to something here.

Opened an old file - same issue. Also I cannot find our company font on Adobes website font finder. Is that another issue? If it is not here then it causes a problem in Captivate? So may be a sync problem is at fault?

Our demo file made in 2019 V1 has been sent to Adobe for analysis.

[cpbrandon]

Hi - thought  I'd suggest something I read about adding custom fonts to projects. Not sure whether those having the problem are publishing the HTML5, but this guy seems to have some fairly straightforward instructions which as he states in first paragraph include details that weren't in other blogs: https://medium.com/@sepyle/use-any-font-in-adobe-captivate-when-publishing-in-html5-8b03d2cabd7. I have tried (and failed) in the past to do this, but never created a Fonts folder to which I added the custom fonts, and then placed that folder in the css folder as he suggests. May be worth a shot if you were expecting to pull the font from the normal folder where fonts are installed on your device. Again, I'm not sure if this will help anyone, just throwing something out there in case you haven't tried it.

Claire_a_bradshaw - how many Brown Pro font faces are you using? From a quick search I found site that has 19 total in that font family. I know you know this from reading above, but you are supposed to have the whole font family installed.

Another quick thought, although would still require you to probably go in and verify your fonts in the end, but for those who are having ALL fonts replaced by Tahoma no matter what, can you go to the Themes button > ensure you have your correct theme selected (which may or may not have the fonts in question) > click Theme Properties > then click Edit. From this dialog, can you successfully replace the Tahoma fonts? I know that isn't going to solve the issue, but might help with updating them.

Apologies if none of that helps, or is a repeat of something already mentioned. Something also I find a little strange about this whole thing is that Tahoma is the chosen fallback font. It's not listed as a Web Safe Font in Captivate, so I wonder what then would actually be displayed to users who don't have Tahoma on their system. Good luck - hope you all find a solution soon.

[bajie23]

we only have font issues on Captivate 2019 v2 latest release.

i am monitoring this thread because it is happening to all 5 of our developers. we are using only 2 fonts the was purchased by the company. Avenir and Camphor. We have been using only 2 fonts since 2013. We simply install the fonts on our control panel by adding them to the fonts folder in windows. Always publishing in HTML5 mobile and PC. have gone from Captivate 7, 8, 9 and 2019 version 1 with no font issues. the same captivate files are updated every few months, have gone through different versions of captivate with no problems. same themes and master slides.

Except for the latest release, we open the cptx, gets prompted to change the file, saying we have Myriad Pro. It doesnt say we are missing OUR fonts. it says missing Myriad Pro. After the pop up, all our text are TAHOMA. We cant waste time changing all text boxes to our font. there is no Replace Fonts option on captivate.

Our team is skipping this update until we find a fix. If anyone wants our CPTX and fonts, i'll be happy to share them if you want to recreate the issue. Hope this gets resolved soon.

Thanks,

[Lilybiri]

This sentence is no longer correct 'there is no Replace Fonts option on captivate.'

You can replace the fonts in all object styles using fonts, with the Theme Properties button, Edit.  Provided you have a proper theme, no overridden styles. This is a brand new feature. Of course in this forum most reactions are negative, rarely positive.

See: Themes are Time savers. What is NEW in 11.5? - Captivate blog

Myriad Pro used to be the default font many versions ago, when Adobe did package that font for free with most applications, including Captivate. That is no longer the case since... (cannot remember, at least 3 versions).

[bajie23]

Wow! Theme properties change font worked! i simply replaced Tahoma  with our font using theme properties.

Thank you very much!

Its just weird that this new version says we're missing Myriad pro, changes our fonts to Tahoma, but then can bring them back using theme properties.

I guess that's way this is not a bug? We are simply using outdated themes and not knowing Adobe added a change font feature. (we rarely visit this forum and look at new features because everything is going well for us for the past few years)

Honestly, I really like Captivate 9 and the first 2019 release. Management have been pushing for Storyline, but i've always rallied for Captivate. Luckily it was my decision to test new version before pushing to the team. I think we only get negative reactions on the forum because if everything is going well, people rarely visit the forums. i really like the new features and the only time i visit the forum is when something is wrong (rarely) for our team.

I'll cascade the theme font change to our team and push the V2 updates to everyone, then we'll probably have no issues in the future unless this functionality changes again.

Again, Thank you very much, Lilybiri! i am big fan! you dont know how many times you have help me and other with your activity here on the community!

[Lilybiri]

I'm just guessing, but since you talk about upgraded themes, and maybe that theme started with Myriad Pro as a defaut font, Captivate's memory is very good?

Finally very happy that at least someone appreciates the good in this update which is simply amazing.... It make me feel bad when only complaints can be found in the forums. Personally I have never written as many blog posts about a release as I have done for this update. Be sure, not even finished, I still have to write about branding QSP-slides, sequencing overlay slides in interactive video, using SVG's for custom hotspot questions and games.... to mention only some.

[Claire_a_bradshaw]

Ok I have to respond to the issue about complaints on a forum. A forum is that - an open space to bring anything up - good, bad or indifferent. It's NOT a stage to sing Adobes praises at every opportunity. Adobe make some fine software that we use every day for elearning and more, which means if something goes wrong, we need a place to go to for help or advice or a community to come together to share experiences and issues and solutions.

This software is very expensive for even a corporation budget, especially when there are multi user licenses involved and major projects with deadlines relying on the software working correctly. So there is an expectation for us to be allowed to feedback any issues we are having - these are not simple complaints - Adobe has an obligation to ensure its software is as bug free as possible and when anything is pointed out to them, to act upon it.

As for the continuing font issue, we are experiencing exactly what others are. Our expectation of Captivate as a licensee is that when an update occurs, there is Business and Developer continuation - i.e. the update and any new functionality does not disrupt the flow of our development - this font replacement function does.

We have followed the instructions with regards to the Theme Editor and have found the following -

a) We loaded our multi page template into Version 2

b) The Myriad Pro missing pop up appeared telling us it will replace it with Tahoma

c) Captivate replaces ALL of our fonts with Tahoma - I note there is no opportunity to go into the Theme editor here

d) Clicking on the Themes menu button shows Themes used on this project is White

e) Theme Properties shows Theme Fonts drop down and colours

f) Click edit

g) Tahoma is number 1 as others have said - no Brown Pro

h) We change all of the fonts to Brown Pro

i) Save and Apply

Brown Pro is applied throughout our Template.

Two questions come to mind -

1) WHY do we have to do this? Why does Version 2 take our perfectly working template in Version 1, wreck the fonts and leave us to spend months working out through a forum (Rather than from Tech Support) that to repair it, we have to do the above?

2) Why are all the font styles lost? Even though Brown Pro is reapplied, it replaces all of the italic and bold etc uses of the font with the plain vanilla, resulting in us having to still check and make edits. We have created several brand related text styles in the Style Names under the Object Style Manager - Corp Heading Grey, Corp Main Heading etc. Although these now contain the correct Family in the Text Format - the Style is lost. No style selected.

Using the Theme Editor is perfectly ok if we made our Template in Version 2 and we create our Theme etc etc. But we didn't - we made it in Version 9 and worked our way up to C2019 Version 1 with no issues like everyone else. We didn't need to use a Theme before and no feel this is being forced upon us.

Some of our eLearning documents are long and complex and will require many hours to go through and test each time this "Feature" messes with our fonts.

Finally another reason why we've not been able to shout from the roof tops how wonderful C2019 V2 is because the font issue is making it unusable so we can't take advantage of the new features. Production in our company has ground to a halt in places and we're advising rolling back to Version 1.

[CDubber]

Claire_a_bradshaw  wrote

Ok I have to respond to the issue about complaints on a forum. A forum is that - an open space to bring anything up - good, bad or indifferent. It's NOT a stage to sing Adobes praises at every opportunity. Adobe make some fine software that we use every day for elearning and more, which means if something goes wrong, we need a place to go to for help or advice or a community to come together to share experiences and issues and solutions.

100% agreed! And is it really too much to ask for some of the Adobe folks to participate regularly on this forum, like the Articulate folks do on theirs?

[ffami]

Just tried Captivate 2019 Update 3 (11.5.1) and unfortunately this bug was not fixed

[Jacob Hokland]

Well I've digged into my Event Viewer and scanned my internet traffic with Wireshark.

TK and Adobe Fonts do NOT behave identically when communicating from and to my IP. I think there is a f... up with the handshake between the licenses....

/Jacob

[Lilybiri]

Interesting!  However I never had the problem described in this thread, when opening older files which used Typekit fonts, although they now switched automatically to Adobe fonts.. From what I read about this 'bug' happenng to some users, not to all, it was always with system fonts, not with Tk fonts.

[Claire_a_bradshaw]

Hey Jacob/Lieve - excellent news; bug solving is a pain but also very rewarding when we start to track down what causes it. So there is the good possibility that Lieve doesn't see it because she doesn't use anything but web safe fonts, but others have that use TK fonts because when the file is loaded into Version 2, the switch to Adobe Fonts causes a fault.

Has anyone else tried creating/opening a version 1 C2019 < file with TK fonts in Version 2 to see the result? 

I'm not 100% sure how the TK / Adobe fonts system works - can someone explain how with say C9, C2017, C2019v1 when we used Brown Pro (Which isn't a Windows installed font), any one without the font on their local machine still saw it? Does TK "install" the required font on the local machine? Sorry, this is a bit of a gap in my knowledge.

[Lilybiri]

Sorry, Clare, misunderstanding. I used a lot of Typekit fonts and had no problems whatsoever. Since they became available I will seldom use websafe fonts. That is why I wrote that I suspect the problem is with system fonts.

To answwer your question, I am busy since  hours working with old files, old themes to work out blogs about using multithemes projects. Never had your error appearing and I am playing a lot with fonts, and with multiple themes in one project.

[Claire_a_bradshaw]

Just to let people know - Version 3 11.5.1.499 (Which fixes critical issues) doesn't fix this one.

[cpbrandon]

Claire_a_bradshaw​

Couple questions, and sorry it's so long, just trying to suggest anything that can get you a little help here:

1. Does your team use a cptx file as a "template" or starting point? (Not a Captivate cptl file, but a cptx which maybe contains Master slides, objects, actions, etc.) Or, do you all simply create a blank project using a default theme for each project you work on?

2. Do your projects contain any objects on Master Slides that are programmed with actions, such as Smart Shape buttons to navigate, or anything like that?

This is why I ask: IF you use a cptx file as a starting point you could try saving the theme as a custom theme from that cptx in the previous/working Captivate version. (You could also do this from any working project in the previous version as well, I guess.) If you save the theme in the older captivate version, ensuring the Myriad Pro font is NOT available on your device, AND ensuring your Custom font is applied throughout as you want it (AND installed on your device locally), you might get lucky after updating versions to see that Captivate isn't searching for Myriad Pro because it doesn't think it should be included any longer. (This is such a long thread I can't remember for sure if that is the font you were seeing as a missing font. I know you are not having luck with your custom font pulling in either, but that is part of what I'm wondering if saving as a custom theme might help with. Long shot, I know.)

This would only help resolve the issue for files which you've applied the theme to prior to the update, which still means you'd see the font replace dialog for any project that Captivate thinks should still include that missing font. Not sure if there is any way around it unfortunately, but it seems like you are opening your old projects which were created in the default White theme (I think is what you said), which at some point probably used Myriad Pro as the default. If you save the theme without Myriad Pro in an older version and then open it in the new version, Captivate should not think it's missing. If you're really lucky, it will also think your custom Brown Pro is a part of the theme, too.

That is what we had to do on our team, although without a custom font. We did not use Myriad Pro in any of our objects, TOC, anything, but it was a part of the default theme from which we created the original project. Fast forward to Update 2 when all this started happening. Most of my team was seeing this font replace dialog any time they opened one of our older project files, but I was not. Because I was one of the only people who still had Myriad Pro on my actual device. I created the "template" cptx file for the team to use in Captivate 9, so anytime anyone else opened that file they got the message Myriad Pro was missing. So, I removed it from my local Fonts folder and of course as soon as I opened the file I got the same dialog they did - two Myriad Pro font faces were missing. (By the way, I've tested using Myriad Pro whether the entire Myriad Pro font family needs to be installed, and I found you only need to have the fonts included which were originally included, NOT the entire set.) What I had to do was save the theme as a custom theme, with the project open of course. Ensuring that theme was applied, and ensuring Myriad Pro was not in any way included in the project or available on my device I was able to share the file with my team and no one receives the message any longer (for that file only).

Opening older projects still identifies the missing font, because those themes still should contain Myriad Pro according to Captivate. This does not help you and your custom font issue, I know. But, if you're able to revert to that previous Captivate version and apply a custom theme to those projects, maybe when you open the projects in the recent versions Captivate will read the theme appropriately. Sorry if you've tried this already and if it doesn't get you any closer to a solution. Good luck!

[Claire_a_bradshaw]

@cpbrandon thanks for your long and detailed reply and attempt at a solution - so far it is 100% more than Adobe has been able to come up with.

So people can keep up with my progress here are the steps I took:

1) Uninstalled Version 2

2) Installed Version 1

3) Yes our template is just a cptx file with several custom edited slides and examples for people to use - from basic white background and a side text area, to a complex multi-pane home page. There are custom bits of Advanced Actions in there too but nothing too complex.

I loaded this into Version 1 and made sure under the Object Style Manager, all of the fonts were set to Brown Pro.

4) Then I saved the Theme under Themes next to the cptx file.

5) Then uninstalled V1 and installed V2 (I downloaded the two files from Adobe - with V3 now available, V1 isn't there any more)

6) I opened the template cptx file and voila, Font is missing, replace.

7) I check under Themes and it says Themes Used in this Project: the Theme I saved.

8) Object style manager has all our set up styles set to Tahoma regular.

Joy.

It'll probably be easier, quicker and much less painful to swap to a rival software.

[cpbrandon]

That's too bad you went through yet another uninstall > install to try and figure it out, with no solution. I was really hoping you'd get lucky with the theme saving your font!

I wonder why it works as it should with Myriad Pro fonts but not the custom fonts. Hopefully you won't have to switch tools. Also, are you positive you have no other choice for font? Our company prefers Helvetica, for example. This does not play well with Captivate and PCs, in our experience. There is an additional set of preferred fonts which can be used in case users don't have fonts, etc. Arial and some other sans serif are in the list, so we use Arial. Not the best, but it works. You guys must be embedding your fonts in you eLearning modules then? Anyway...crossing my fingers you all will find a solution.

[NormLangevin]

Ok, I've been dealing with this nonsensical problem for way to long and I may have figured out a way around it. (I have also logged a bug report with Adobe).

This solution worked for me - your mileage may vary.

Any 'custom' fonts that you wish to use in your Captivate projects need to be installed through Captivate!

As I use more than one Adobe tool I installed our corporate brand fonts through the CC application. For whatever reason, Cp would not recognize that the fonts were installed.

In desperation:

I went into CC and deactivated the 'missing' fonts.

Rebooted computer.

Opened Cp to the project with the problem,

Clicked close on the font replacer (which then promptly changed everything to Tahoma),

Select a text box that now uses Tahoma,

Click on the CC icon beside the font dropdown in Cp,

Find fonts, activate the entire family <- you MUST activate the entire family!

Font now available to select in fonts list,

Close Cp without saving the now screwed up project,

Reopen Cp to the project - NO MORE FONT REPLACER and all fonts display as they were intended to.

If you are experiencing this problem - even if this fixes it - please log a bug report.

PS. Adobe reps - I figured this out AFTER speaking to you. Please test and if it works pass the word.

[Claire_a_bradshaw]

Sounds good - I will have a try.

I was asked by Adobe if I had the Regular face of the custom font we use. As we have not licensed that, I have had to arrange a special 2 week developer license, through our Legal team and Senior management with the font owners to obtain such a licensed font!!

This is borderline ridiculous.

I don't understand why the Multi-billion dollar corp that is Adobe can't be doing this testing for us....

Oh yes, it's because it's a feature.... 

[Lilybiri]

AFAIK are you talking about Adobe fonts, not about System fonts.

[NormLangevin]

Hi Lilybiri

I am speaking about Adobe fonts. I had installed the fonts through the CC app because I use multiple Adobe tools.

Fonts install into Windows fonts folder when 'activated'. Font was present in folder, Cp could/would not use it. Deactivated/reactivated through CC app many times - nothing.

Wiped font from system manually. Reactivated through Cp. Works.

Don't know why, may not work for anyone other than me. 🙂

[Lilybiri]

I dont dare to join the conversation here anymore. I also use exclusively Adobe fonts as in the other Adobe applications. As you may see I am an ACP.

Most users in this thread talk about system fonts.... was reason for my short sentence.

[NormLangevin]

?

It sounds like I may have offended you somehow - if I have, my apologies.

Just trying to help the community with a problem that is highly frustrating for those of us experiencing it. It is weird because it is a subset of users and not everyone. Adobe tech support was ZERO help so I thought I'd post the solution that worked for me.

Again, if I have caused offense, I apologize as I've always appreciated your help, advice and instruction on the forum.

[Lilybiri]

No, you misunderstood.  I have been trying from the start to explain why I never had the problem. With explanation of the difference between websafe+Adobe fonts and the system fonts. I had the dialog box only once, when I was logged out by accident from the CC app.

Someone told I needed to try with a system font, but that has no sense for projects which use dynamic text or are resposnive projects. No appreciated....

[NormLangevin]

awesome!

I can't speak for system fonts either...