Fonts unavailable in FrameMaker

[_Roger_Williams_]

We've made some documents in FrameMaker 7.1, using a variety of fonts. Just today, several of us have get an error message when opening the documents we've been editing.

"[Your document] uses unavailable fonts. Reformat using available fonts?"

So selecting yes and opening the file, the error log says which fonts are unavailalbe. (Different for different users, oddly.)

When we open the Format - Paragraph - Designer dialog, Font tab, these unavailable fonts (which we'd previously been using) are in the list of fonts, but grayed out, and we can't select them. However, the fonts are installed in the operating system (Windows XP SP2), and are available for other applications. Any ideas on how I get them available again for FrameMaker 7.1?

[_Thomas_Michanek_]

Have you worked on these documents before without getting this error?

The grayed-out font names is FM's way to tell you that the document
uses these fonts, but FM cannot "see" them being installed.
FM doesn't use any font handling on its own. It relies on Windows to
report which fonts are installed (available) or not.

It sounds like something has changed on your systems. Perhaps the
fonts have been reinstalled (by IT?), some font management software
has been installed, Windows has been updated, FM has been updated,
or someone has changed the font mapping info in the maker.ini files.

Select a font that is working on a colleagues computer, but is
reported as missing on yours. Copy the associated font files from
the other computer to yours, and re-install the font (save a backup
copy of the font files first). Any change in FM?

--
/Thomas Michanek

[AxialInfo]

One more item to add to Thomas' comprehensive reply -- some fonts may not be available if you've changed your system's default printer.

There are a number of threads on the forum discussing the reasons, but short and sweet: best bet is to set the Acrobat Distiller printer instance as your default printer when working in FM, and ensure that all of your font directories are specified in Distiller.

There's a great freebie utility called SetPrint that does this for FM (and doesn't get other apps confused!): http://www.sundorne.com

[_Roger_Williams_]

Further investigation confirming what other people have been telling me, the missing fonts are, for ALL users, Courier and another one made especially for our company. Looking at the online help for FrameMaker, it says that if Adobe Type Manager is not running, then Courier is not available. This might be a red herring, I don't know. If not, how do I see if Adobe Type Manager is or is not running, and what do I do about it?

A search on my local PC for Adobe Type Manager brings up nothing.

Thanks everyone for your time.

[_Roger_Williams_]

All my font directories are defined in Distiller.

The missing font (Courier and one other) are all available in Word and other applications.

As far as i can tell, no new fonts have been installed or deleted for over a year.

The maker .ini files on my PC are all dated at least a year ago.

We changed our default printer not long ago, but I have been using the relevant files, and printing them to PDF, since then. Now, when we try to Save As PDF, or to Print with Generate PDF Data, then FrameMaker comes back with an error saying that it failed to print, as it could not open the files, as certain fonts were not available.

[_Kenneth_Benson_]

Changing the default printer is almost certainly the culprit here.

When running Frame, your default printer should always be Adobe PDF.
Physical printers installed on your system come with "device" fonts.
What that means is that the printer driver tells the operating system
that Courier is available inside the printer, so the OS makes it
available to Frame, even though Courier was never really installed. The
Adobe PDF printer doesn't allow device fonts, so you won't run into this
again (after you fix your files so they don't reference fonts you don't
have installed).

You have, I think, three choices:

1) Change back to the old default printer. Courier should come back, but
you'll have to remember to use that printer whenever you open those files.

2) Install Courier. Go to Control Panel > Fonts, and install Courier.
The Courier you install may not be exactly the same as the
printer-resident Courier, so this may not solve the problem. It's also
kind of a waste, because you already should have Courier New installed.
Courier New is pretty much identical to Courier. It installs with
Windows, and it's just about impossible to get rid of, so I'm sure you
have it.

3) Substitute Courier New. Find where Courier is used and use Courier
New instead.

Meanwhile, think about using Adobe PDF as your default printer. Sheila
mentioned a utility called SetPrint that will change the default printer
while Frame is running (I think that's how it works) so you'll still
have the real default available to other apps.

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

[_Van_Kurtz_]

Roger,

Because you are running Windows XP, I do not think you need to have Adobe Type Manager; it was created when Windows did not have the ability to use PostScript fonts.

Also, I think you should avoid using Save as PDF. The better way to make a PDF is to print the document or book with Adobe PDF as the printer. But I doubt that NOT doing this is the source of your problem.

In any event, you can get round the error of not being able to open documents with missing fonts by FIRST opening all the documents in the book. At each open, Frame will complain about the missing fonts but allow you to open the file anyway. THEN print the book to Adobe PDF. Because the files are already open, Frame will print them anyway. Of course, the missing font is still missing but Acrobat will be able to create something close to it.

Van

[_Roger_Williams_]

The problem surfaced about 2 weeks after we changed the default printer. I opened and printed to PDF without problems for those 2 weeks without a problem, and those fonts were available all through that time, so it's unlikely to be that. It's not possible to go back to the default printer, as the IT department have taken it away.

After I posted here last night, everyone else logged off and went home. Then the fonts were suddenly available to FrameMaker and I could Save to PDF and Print to PDF with no problems. The problems restarted this morning, so it is something that someone is running during the day that stops it reading those fonts. (Courier and our own bespoke fonts.)

Courier is installed. Word can see it and use it and print with it. It isn't available to Internet Explorer though.

I was reading that Courier on Windows is supposed to be a hidden system font, so changing it to Courier New seems a good idea. However, this leaves the question of how we create and use our bespoke fonts.

I'm not sure whether we use Adobe Type Manager, it's not in my list of Program Files. (If that is where I should be looking for it.) The actual FrameMaker document files are on a server that we log onto.

Changing the WinXP default printer to Adobe PDF solves the problem. However, I am going to get complaints if I suggest this as the solution, all along the lines of "We could use Word and ditch Frame, as it won't force us to set the system default printer to Adobe PDF."

[_Kenneth_Benson_]

> Courier is installed. Word can see it

That doesn't mean a whole lot. Courier is only installed if it's in
Control Panel > Fonts. When you're in there, you're going to notice
"Courier New" (in four weights) and "Courier 10,12,15 (VGA Res)".
Neither of these is the Courier you're missing, although I can't tell
you from this end what Courier you really need.

> I was reading that Courier on Windows is supposed to be a hidden
> system font, so changing it to Courier New seems a good idea.
> However, this leaves the question of how we create and use our
> bespoke fonts.

I don't know what a "bespoke font" is, but Courier New is functionally
identical to (and much more complete than) Type 1 Courier. Again,
though, I don't know what version of Courier you're missing. There are
lots of them. Type 1 Courier is not normally a hidden or system file,
although you could certainly make it one if you wanted.

> I'm not sure whether we use Adobe Type Manager, it's not in my list
> of Program Files.

If you had ATM, it would load on startup. But you don't need ATM to
display Type 1 fonts. Windows 2000 and newer have support for Type 1
fonts built in. ATM comes with a number of "base" Type 1 fonts,
including Courier.

> Changing the WinXP default printer to Adobe PDF solves the problem.
> However, I am going to get complaints if I suggest this as the
> solution, all along the lines of "We could use Word and ditch Frame,
> as it won't force us to set the system default printer to Adobe PDF."

Sheila and I have both suggested a utility called SetPrint that will do
this for you. I'll say it again, it should be printed on the Framemaker
box in big, bold letters: When running Frame, your default printer
should always be Adobe PDF. Sticking with only one default printer, and
making sure that default printer doesn't offer up bogus device fonts,
will solve problems you haven't even run into yet. If you use SetPrint,
you can keep your regular default printer for all your other programs,
and set Adobe PDF as your default printer just for Frame.

If your only argument against using Word is that it doesn't require
special treatment, then you probably should be using Word. Frame is old
and fussy and just a little buggy. But I would quit my job if my boss
told me to use Word for anything more than memos (easy enough for me to
say; I don't have a boss).

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

[_Kenneth_Benson_]

BTW, another frequent cause of missing font messages is having multiple
fonts of the exact same name installed. Again, check Control Panel >
Fonts. Don't remove either of the Couriers I mentioned earlier, but do
check for T1 and TT (or OT) fonts named simply "Courier".

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

[_Thomas_Michanek_]

Roger,
Let's see if you can see this reply from me...

I must admit I have some difficulties following your problem description.
You say you could create PDFs without problems even after your system's
default printer was changed. This means that the problem is not related
to your default printer setting or to FrameMaker.
Now you say that changing the default printer to Adobe PDF solves the
problem that resurfaced yesterday. This doesn't make sense, and
indicates that the problem is somewhere else in your network or setup.

I'm sure you're frustrated, but you have to go about this systematically
to find the basic problem. I would start with the actual fonts.
You say that FM reports problems with 2 fonts, Courier and your own.
First check with IT if any of these fonts have been reinstalled,
perhaps as part of a system update of some kind in your company.
Next, check the actual font files on all affected systems (type, size,
dates). If they're not identical, or you have some kind of duplicate
of these fonts installed, then re-install both fonts completely on all
systems, using the exact same copy of the font files. You can have both
Courier and Courier New installed, but not "Courier" in both TrueType
and Type 1 variants, for instance.

If this doesn't solve the problem, try and copy the FM files from the
network drive to your local hard drive and open these files.

Next, check if changing the default printer before opening the FM
files make any difference. If it does, or if the results are different
for different users, you do have a printer driver problem. I would then
delete and completely reinstall the printers on all systems.

A few other comments:
> The problems restarted this morning, so it is something that someone
> is running during the day that stops it reading those fonts.

That's highly unlikely, since that "something" would have to affect
your own computer's handling of fonts or printers. The only thing I
know of that would do this is known as a "virus" or "trojan horse"...
More likely, something has changed on your system/network (see my
initial reply).

> I'm not sure whether we use Adobe Type Manager, it's not in my list
> of Program Files. (If that is where I should be looking for it.)

Forget about ATM, it's completely irrevelant to Windows XP.

Finally, FM *is* more sensitive to font problems than Word, or rather,
FM reports the problems instead of ignoring or hiding them. People
may think that the "Word way" is better, but you can be assured that
the font problems that do exist will eventually come back and bite
you even harder, if you don't fix them now.

--
/Thomas Michanek

[_Roger_Williams_]

Thanks, that's a great deal of good helpful advice.

Yes, you're right, we only have Courier New and Courier 10, 12, 15. Where we got, if we ever had, another form of Courier, I don't know. Courier New sounds like a good option.

By "bespoke font" I mean one that someone made specially for us. I had nothing to do with it, and it was before my time, although to comply with house styles I have to use it occasionally. It is a Type 1 font, according to the Properties dialog for it in Windows XP, and it's in the C:\WINDOWS\Fonts file.

Okay, I'll look at SetPrint, and then suggest to people here that we use it. Sounds like a good idea, since we mainly give out online PDFs rather than physically printing manuals.

I'm 101%+ with you on Word vs Frame, as are the other people here with the most experience, as well as for going to structured documentation, which is another topic all together. Word has its fanatics here that I hear from all day long. Thanks for the help.

[_Kenneth_Benson_]

> Yes, you're right, we only have Courier New and Courier 10, 12, 15.

Now we're getting somewhere. Courier is not installed. Copy it from
another machine and install it. The filenames for Type 1 Adobe Courier
regular, oblique, bold, and bold oblique are:

com_____.pfb
com_____.pfm
coo_____.pfb
coo_____.pfm
cob_____.pfb
cob_____.pfm
cobo____.pfb
cobo____.pfm

In fact, I have a feeling you have these somewhere on *your* machine;
they should have come with Acrobat. They're just not installed right
now. Again, I don't know for sure whether this is the version of Courier
Frame is looking for, but it would be my first choice.

> By "bespoke font" I mean one that someone made specially for us. I
> had nothing to do with it, and it was before my time, although to
> comply with house styles I have to use it occasionally. It is a Type
> 1 font, according to the Properties dialog for it in Windows XP, and
> it's in the C:\WINDOWS\Fonts file.

So what do your custom-made fonts have to do with the missing Courier?
If you're seeing them in Control Panel > Fonts, then they're installed.
If they're installed, then they should be showing up in Frame. Right?

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

[_Van_Kurtz_]

Roger,

I am sure you already know this, but if you have to print a manual, you can always print it from the PDF. Doing so avoids any problems with fonts on different printers being a little different. All our manuals are printed, and we send only PDFs to the printer.

Van

[AxialInfo]

Being able to see and use Courier 10, 12, and 15 is indicative of having something fishy on your printer setup. It's almost certain they're VGA fonts and sizes that are installed with Windows or possibly with some older line printers. As far as I know they were only meant for use as screen fonts in DOS apps. Here's a list for WinXP: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=326402

Notice that it calls the ".fon" fonts hidden fonts.

do you have files called "coure.fon or courf.fon" on your system(s)?

Ken -- if I'm reading his msg correctly, Roger means that they've had a customized version of Courier created for them, "bespoke font"

[_Kenneth_Benson_]

Sheila,

I don't think he can see and use his VGA fonts. I told him to look in
Control Panel > Fonts, and he should see only VGA Courier and Courier
New, and that turned out to be true.

I don't know what Courier he's seeing in Word, but I've got Courier
available in Word, and I don't have it installed either.

If his bespoke font is Courier, then it should really be named something
different than just "Courier". I mean, would you customize a font and
then keep the original name?

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

[_Kim_Cramer_]

As recommended, I went to download SetPrint. The website says it's been tested on FM 6 and 7. Does anyone know if it works with FM8?

Thanks for your help!

Kim Cramer
Information Developer
Telesoft Corporation
602-308-1139

[_Ian_Hawkins_]

Yes, it works with FM8. I just haven't update the website. Sorry about that.

Ian

[_Kim_Cramer_]

Thanks, Ian!