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K
kiski
Known Participant
July 20, 2018
Answered

Font corrupted or substituted?

  • July 20, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 6163 views

I’m working on a brochure with a regional map ( dozens of lakes, rivers, names, roads, canoe routes, etc) in Mac OS X 10.10.5, Adobe InDesign & Illustrator CS6. (I’m semi retired and not using Creative Cloud!) The map was prepared by a government department and sent to me as an Illustrator CS6 file. The file was also sent as a PDF which I cannot change. I do have to make some type changes, but the map designer has gone on holidays. She did supply me the fonts.

My problem is, when I open her file, that some of the font styles - Times Roman Regular and Italic and Swiss 721 Condensed - are the wrong size and stretched beyond legibility. The Helvetica Regular, Bold, Narrow fonts are fine. My font palette shows the font size as 0.9 points when it should be about 6 points. There are dozens and dozens of words on multiple layers. So, somehow some fonts are being substituted.

Of the fonts the map designer sent me, one font would not download, and I do not recognize it - Ebrima.ttf.  Tried to buy it, but can’t find it from any font supplier.

I am on a severe deadline to get this printed. Any idea how I can fix this?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer barbara_a7746676

    How and where can I upload the map file?


    Put in in Dropbox or similar service and provide a link in your forum post.

    2 replies

    Larry G. Schneider
    Community Expert
    Larry G. SchneiderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 21, 2018

    Remember having problems like this years ago while working for the USGS. Just as an experiment try selecting all and use the arrow keys to move everything one click to the left and then back. Now try check the font sizes.

    K
    kiskiAuthor
    Known Participant
    July 21, 2018

    Tried that Larry. Only moved the cursor in either direction. Didn't change the font.

    barbara_a7746676
    Community Expert
    barbara_a7746676Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 22, 2018

    Dropbox - MAN2815 v2018 COPY.ai


    Thanks for sharing the link. The text was distorted on my computer also.

    I don't think that the distorted text has anything to do with your computer or your fonts.

    The person who gave you the file has done some transitions to the text, and the file may have gotten corrupt in transferring it to you, or it could have been due to using different versions of Illustrator.

    If you select a piece of text, then open the Character panel (you may need to expand the Character panel in the panel menu), you will see that the selected text has a width distortion. In the screen capture below the width should read 100%, but it reads 498.3%.

    To fix this mess, you can start by selecting the black Selection tool and then choose Select > All.

    In the Character panel, type 100% in the width field and press Tab or Enter to OK it. That will fix most of the text.

    For those pieces of text that have more than one line of text, you'll need to highlight them with the type tool , one at a time. You can click anywhere in the text with your type tool and Select > All. Then Increase the leading amount. In the screen capture below I increased the leading from 0.9 pixels to 11 pixels.

      barbara_a7746676
      Community Expert
      barbara_a7746676Community Expert
      Community Expert
      July 21, 2018

      As far as the Ebrima font, you should be able to download it from https://ufonts.com/fonts/ebrima.html

      If you and the map designer are on different operating systems that could cause a font issue. Not all Mac fonts are compatible with Windows and visa versa. If that is the case, you will need to download and install the fonts for your OS.

      When you look under the Type menu and choose Find Font, any missing fonts will be listed.

      K
      kiskiAuthor
      Known Participant
      July 21, 2018

      Thank you Barbara!

      The map designer is on Windows. She sent me Times Roman ttf fonts - "tt0002m_.tff". I thought they work on either platform?

      I did download hers even tho it did not make any difference in the map document. If I already had Mac Times Roman installed, how do I make hers and mine compatible for this project?

      barbara_a7746676
      Community Expert
      barbara_a7746676Community Expert
      Community Expert
      July 21, 2018

      TrueType fonts are not reliably cross-platform. OpenType fonts are truly cross-platform. Open type fonts have an OTF file extension, although that is not a foolproof way to identify them because sometimes the operating system misinterprets them and give them a TTF extension. OpenType fonts often have the word 'STD' or 'PRO' in the name. For example, Linotype's Times Roman is OpenType https://www.linotype.com/47622/times-roman-product.html?format=ot-cff&branding=std

      If you click on Technical Details (about 1/3 of the way down the page), you'll see that the internal name contains the letters STD.

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