Some math elements appear as question marks in equations - FM9/Win7Pro

Report · Feb 23, 2011

Hello everyone,

I am facing the issue that some math elements appear as question marks in equations; for example, the summation and angle symbols.

The approximately equal or the alpha symbols, for example, appear correctly.

The symbol font is installed.

System specs:

FrameMaker 9 with the latest patches installed.
Windows 7 Professional with the latest updates installed.

The strange thing is that math elements appear correctly using virtual computers on my computer (Windows XP and Windows 7 Ultimate on VMWare).

Same maker.ini file and fonts are present on all (real and virtual) computers.

I have reinstalled FrameMaker already on my real computer (where I have the trouble) and it did not solve the issue.

I have checked (I think) all question mark related topics (when question marks are displayed instead of the correct characters) on this site, but none of them provided the solution to my problem.

I would appreciate your help!

Thanks,

András

Report · Feb 23, 2011

András, some troubleshooting questions.

Do you have the same printer set as the system default when you start FM (or alternatively do you use the fantastic freebie SetPrint utility from http://www.sundorne.com in FM, which sets the printer for FM independently of the system printer default). Most folks find that keeping the Acrobat printer instance as the default provides the most consistent results in FM. If you do use the Acrobat printer, be sure to double-check what directories are listed for the source of fonts for the printer instance, to be sure that the printer can access the font locations correctly.

Do the question marks appear only on-screen in FM, or when you create a PDF, or both?

Do you have more than one version of the Symbol font, e.g. an OpenType version plus any other version (older TT, or PS), or perhaps do you have multiple iterations of the Symbol font on your system, which sometimes can happen from multiple software installs?

Sheila

Report · Feb 24, 2011

Hi Sheila,

Thank you for your response.

I use Adobe PDF as the default printer on both the real and virtual computers and I do not know the SetPrint utility.

I see the question marks appear in the FM files as well as in the printed PDF. It makes me think it is not a printing issue.

c:\windows\fonts is provided as the Font Source in the Embedding box for the Adobe PDF printer both on my real computer and my virtual one.

The SymbolMT font is listed in both cases in the Embedding box, which is (probably) referred to as Symbol Regular when I open the c:\windows\fonts folder using Windows Explorer. No other symbol fonts seem to be installed in this folder. I do not know how to check what other folders FM considers.

By the way, I can insert the summation character, for example, as a simple character using the Equations editor correctly, the problem comes when I try to insert it as a math element.

I have attached an example screenshot.

Thanks,

András

Report · Mar 01, 2011

Hi,

Problem is solved by the workaround explained here:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/457771

As this problem comes up using Internet Explorer as well, it seems this is not a FrameMaker bug but a Windows bug.

I feel two suns rose today for me

Regards,

András