Fonts disappear when importing SVG file into FrameMaker

[_Steven_Teasdale_]

Good afternoon.

We have a set of flowcharts in SVG format that I would like to import as graphics into FrameMaker. The SVGs contain embedded proprietary fonts and display fine in Internet Explorer (with Adobe SVG viewer), but when I import them into FrameMaker, the text disappears and only the graphic objects are displayed.

When I change the font in the SVG from GE (our font) to Arial, this problem goes away. However, the proprietary fonts are supposed to be embeddable, and oddly enough display fine in Explorer with the Adobe SVG viewer.

I have compared our GE font with the Arial font, and there is one small difference. The embedding property for Arial is "Installable Embedding Allowed", while the embedding property for the GE font is "Editable Embedding Allowed". All other properties are identical.

Does this mean that fonts with the "Editable Embedding Allowed" property cannot be used in SVGs that are imported into FrameMaker? If so, why?

If not, is there a way around this?

Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Steven Teasdale
GE Multilin

[_Steven_Teasdale_]

One more note.

PDF images embedded with these proprietary fonts can be imported into Frame without any problems; only SVG images drop the fonts.

[MichaelKazlow]

Steven,

I have found FrameMaker support for SVG problematical. I'd recommend you
use pdfs which you say work for you.

Mike

[AxialInfo]

Not to contradict Mike's wisdom (which unfortunately is what I would have also said, much to my dismay b/c SVG as a format seemed to have had such singular promise and versatility), but for the record which specific version of FM (from Help > About, the "pxxx" numbers), and platform?

[_thomas_bro_]

I do not disagree with the fact that PDF is better than SVG, but I have at least one project where only SVG's are used. (+20.000).

So ....

The reason for these SVGS's is that they have to be used as images in a WebWorks output and thus using the beauties of SVG's as web-graphics.

The SVG we use comes from various sources (CorelDRAW, Illustrator). They use all types of fonts, jumps, links etc.

To follow Sheila's comments:

FM7.2p158
WinXPPro

One thing though: when we import we NEVER cahnge the FM default settings of 72 dpi. Doing this certainly gives you problems in terms of missing images (whole or partly), resolutionproblems. Furtermore inside FM these images are also difficult to control. They tend to change when docs are opened, saved, opened.

keep smiling
thomas

[_Steven_Teasdale_]

Shiela / Mike / Thomas

We are currently using

Frame 8.0p273
Windows XP Professional

We also had the same problem when using Frame 7.2p158.

We are currently using PDF as our image format (for about 1000 images), which work fine for our print output. We currently have all our documentation in DITA XML, which we import into Frame and compile print-quality PDFs with no problems.

However, like Thomas, we are also creating HTML Help output from these same DITA files. In this case, I have to create PNGs from all the PDFs images, then modify all 1200+ XML topics to change all referenes of "XXX.PNG" to "XXX.PDF". To eliminate these intermediate steps, I would like to use SVG files. This would allow us to use the source for print and online graphics, eliminate the intermediate steps for creating online HTML Help, and greatly improve the quality of the web graphics (over PNG).

We also use the default of 72dpi. But our problem remains the complete deletion of all fonts from the SVGs when they are imported into FrameMaker (other applications do not do this). I am convinced that this is done by erroneously done by Frame itself when it reads the font embedding properties as "Editable Embedding Allowed", and that there must be some sort of solution.

Thanks for your help, and any further suggestions are welcome!!!

[Art_Campbell]

Steven,

Are the GE font(s) properly installed on the machine that's running FM?

Art

[_Steven_Teasdale_]

Hi Art

Yes, the GE fonts are properly installed on the machine running Frame. The fonts are used throughout the Frame template itself, and in imported PDF images.

Steven

[AxialInfo]

In my FM 7.2p158 maker.ini there are three API Clients entries for SVG import, two are commented out, and a single entry in the Filters section. Given your long quest for this solution (I saw your FrameUsers postings back in '07) I expect you've checked these variations out?

[MichaelKazlow]

I thought SVG was the way to go, but I had problems with it and dropped
it. Adobe has stopped work on the SVG Viewer
. Adobe may think the technology has
matured. But there are still too many browsers that don't work...