I seem to have a buried font

Report · May 13, 2011

I am trying to generate the pdf and it keeps flushing the job because

"Error: Helvetica-Bold cannot be found. Font cannot be embedded."

I have gone thru the offending document in the book, character-by-character, and cannot find a place where that is being used. I don't even want to use it. Do you know how I can find where the font is being used?

janet

Report · May 13, 2011

Janet,

The following is for FM9, but it's generally the same in all versions:

Does FM does complain about missing fonts when you open the files in FM?

If it doesn't, then you've probably got the "Remember missing fonts" setting in FM turned on, so FM is ignoring missing fonts, but then as you've found Distiller can't find them so it's choking.

To tell FM to not remember missing fonts, in FM File > Preferences, uncheck the "Remember missing fonts" checkbox. Then, when you open the files, FM will substitute whatever equivalent font for Helvetica, which 99.9% of the time will be Arial. This substitution is changed by editing the maker.ini file, but normally you would likely not need to change the substitution font in the maker.ini

So, change the Preferences setting in FM, click Set at the bottom, then close FM to save this preference. Then open FM, open your files, update your book, then save the files again. Helvetica should thereby be excommunicated from that set of files.

As for where the font is hiding, it could be on a reference page, master page, or even in a table format that might have been used once-upon-a-time in the FM file but might no longer be defined. It could also be lurking in an empty text box just randomly plunked on any body, master, or reference page -- I've seen instances where people have clicked on one of the text frame creation icons then clicked on the page but then changed their minds about creating the frame, not realizing that just clicking on the page could be leaving an empty text string or text frame.

Another lesser possibility is that you might have Helvetica on your system, so FM sees it and doesn't complain, but just Distiller can't find it. In this case you would need to check where the font files are located and be sure that this path has been added to Distiller's Settings > Font locations. However, as you've said you don't use Helvetica, this is the less likely situation.

Please let us know if that solves the problem; if not, please also post your specific version of FM (including the pxxx as shown in Help > About), and whether you're using the Distiller that came from the FM install or whether you have a standalone Acrobat Pro installed, and which version.

Sheila

Report · May 14, 2011

"Error: Helvetica-Bold cannot be found. Font cannot be embedded."

I have gone thru the offending document in the book, character-by-character, and cannot find a place where that is being used.

There are an astonishing number of places where font invocations can hide. Master pages. Reference Pages. Table Formats. Some of these cannot easily be found.

I don't even want to use it. Do you know how I can find where the font is being used?

What I do is save the document as MIF, and open the MIF in a text editor. Search for "Helvetica".

If you want to learn a little MIF, you can probably figure out where it's being invoked.

But simply changing all instances of "Helvetica" to "Arial", saving the MIF, and re-opening it in Frame may be all that's required.

Report · May 14, 2011

Since the mentioned font is Helvetica, another place it can hide is on

your printer. Helvetica is one of the basic PostScript fonts that come

hardwired into PS printers. They are "printer resident." When you

install the printer, the printer driver lets the OS see the font,

display it, and print it-- but only print it to the printer where it is

hardwired. The font cannot be embedded in a PDF.

To be able to embed the font, you have to first manually install it on

your computer. Luckily, the printer-resident font files can normally be

found on the printer installation disk, where they can be manually

installed. Then you will be able to embed them in PDFs.

Report · May 16, 2011

Janet,

If the Helvetica IS a printer-resident font, then set Adobe PDF as your default printer, which you should do when using FrameMaker anyway. This eliminates many font problems.

I would also follow Error's suggestion about saving the file in the mif format, opening it in a text editor, and looking for instances of Helvetica. I once had to do this and found a few instances of the font's being used with no characters entered. In other words, these instances were simply a toggle-on and toggle-off of the font. FrameMaker saw the font as being used, even though no characters were formatted with it.

Van

Report · May 16, 2011

Thank you all for your attempts at help so far. I apologize for going silent, but the computer with FM was "closed" for the weekend and I couldn't respond until now. Turns out, at least part of the problem was that I didn't have all the documents in the book checked out, so FM (or is it Distiller?) couldn't write to all the documents. I tried it on a smaller, similar book, and all files are written to properly, then the FM console says it is printing the first of the documents in the book and FM seems to hang. I did reset the printer to be default Adobe PDF and also set Preferences to not remember fonts, as suggested at the beginning. I have tried saving individual documents and the book as MIF, but couldn't find any example of "Helvetica."

So my question is, am I being too impatient or is something else going on here?

janet

Report · May 16, 2011

Oh, and I forgot to say again, I'm on FM 8.0p277.

Report · May 16, 2011

Another possibility is that Helvetica is used in a graphic or referenced file that you've imported, but the font itself isn't embedded in the graphic or on your system. This used to be a much greater problem with using .bmp or .eps (or PDF made from the .eps) and similar format graphics because they are often created with just a reference to the font, presuming (incorrectly) that whoever would be using the file would have the font.

Do you have graphics or Word files or spreadsheets or powerpoint files in your FM docs? That could be where the call for Helvetica is lurking.

How do you create your PDF, are you using Save As or are you creating a .ps file and then distilling that?

Do you have a separate, standalone Adobe Acrobat Pro on your system, or are you using the Adobe printer that could have been installed with FM?

However, if Helvetica was "called" in your FM file itself (as opposed to a graphic or embedded file), the solution to tell FM not to remember missing fonts =should= work, assuming that you've done the following:

Checked out all of the FM docs and referenced graphics etc. from wherever they live.
Ensure that Adobe PDF is set as your default printer in Control Panel > Printers.
Open FM (not your files, just FM itself).
Look at File > Preferences > General. Uncheck "Remember missing font names". Click "Set".
Close FM so that the preference setting is saved in your FM user profile.
Open FM again, open the book file, and then open chapters. If you open the chapters one-by-one, and if Helvetica is used in the chapter, you should see the "FM console" window pop up in your task bar whenever FM encounters Helvetica, so you can determine in which chapter(s) you might have Helvetica (for future reference).
Save the book and all the chapters in order to save the change from Helvetica to Arial. (Being a bit compulsive, I'd close the files and then close FM too).
Open FM and the files again. If all of the Helvetica references were correctly changed to Arial, and assuming that Helvetica was referenced in your FM files as opposed to a graphic or embedded file, you should not get any FM console messages about missing fonts.
Create a PDF.

Report · May 17, 2011

Another possibility is that Helvetica is used in a graphic or referenced file that you've imported, but the font itself isn't embedded in the graphic or on your system.

And don't forget text insets.

If the problem is that Helvetica is invoked by a graphical object, verification might be as simple as:

View > View Options

Display:

[_] Graphics (off).

Print to file or PDF.

If the error goes away, it's coming in with an image.

If it stays, it's in a text inset or somewhere else.

Report · May 17, 2011

That did it! The images in the documents are all .eps. When I generated the .pdf

without viewing graphics, it failed the first time because I didn't uncheck the

Graphics viewing option on each document. It generated the first 10 pages, and

then errored out. I paged thru to where I thought the error had occurred and it

was on a .eps graphic.

So I have found the problem. Any suggestion to how I unassociate the font from

the graphics?

janet

Report · May 17, 2011

... the error had occurred and it was on a .eps graphic. ... Any suggestion to how I unassociate the font from

the graphics?

Off the top of my head, there are several choices, most of which rely on a vector editor [VE] (such as Adobe Illustrator):

Open in VE on a platform with Helvetica installed. Re-save with embedded font.
Open in VE on a platform with Helvetica installed. Convert type to outlines. Re-save.
Open in VE. Change font used to some similar sans font that is on the Frame platform. Re-save (with embedding).
Open in a raster editor (such as Photoshop), at suitably high res. Re-save as TIF (to preserve the original EPS).

I often use fonts in imported EPS objects. But my rule is: either embed the fonts, or convert all type to outlines.

Report · May 17, 2011