Skip to main content
T
Tiekerz
Inspiring
December 7, 2017
Answered

Alternate glyphs not working

  • December 7, 2017
  • 4 replies
  • 18490 views

Hi guys,

at work, we use a CC for Teams subscription. I have a bug that none of the others have and has remained throughout the installation of a newer version of InDesign and trashing the prefs.

If I type a new text I cannot select alternate glyphs; there is no on-context menu and if I manually select another version of the glyph it will just show the standard. If I use a file with text made by a colleague it works normally. We use macOS Sierra 10.12.6 with the latest version of InDesign.

Anyone know what's happening? I haven't been able to find it on this forum, nor by googling it. I'm hoping it's a simple setting I'm overlooking

Thanks!

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Tiekerz

    Thanks everyone for your help. It isn't on World ready, and it's turned on in advanced, but your suggestions made me think and the solution was too easy

    I checked language settings and discovered my standard language switched to Malayalam (granted, that is weird). I reset it and everything works fine.

    I'll post how to change it in case someone else stumbles upon this thread with the same problem: open InDesign (but not a document) and go to your language settings (command T), set it to your preferred language (dutch in my case) and you're done.

    Cheers!

    4 replies

    T
    TMax99
    Participant
    March 14, 2022

    I was having a similar problem in Photoshop, unable to select basic glyphs for a font. I finally realized that 'Stylistic Alternates' was turned on in the character menu. When I turned it off, I was able to select glyphs as usual. Hopefully this helps someone waste less time on this than I did.

    T
    TMax99
    Participant
    March 14, 2022


    Here's where you can turn off 'Stylistic Alternates'

    F
    Frankie916
    Participant
    June 24, 2020

    Not sure if anyone is still having problems with this issue, but here is a possible solution. I am using CC 2020 and it would not let me use certain glyphs in photoshop. I removed the OTF font file type and installed the TTF of the font I want. I restarted photoshop and it works now. Before some of the glyphs did not work, now all of them work. Not sure what the difference is between the fonts but it worked. Hope it helps! 

      J
      James22915178hw64
      Participant
      January 31, 2022

      Thank you SO much! I couldnt work out what was happening but this has solved it. PDF with the font told me to use the OTF but TTF works perfectly. Must be a bug somewhere.

        Steve Werner
        Community Expert
        Steve WernerCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        December 7, 2017

        It also needs to be turned on in Advanced Type Preferences:

        amaarora
        amaarora
        Inspiring
        December 7, 2017

        Hi,

        Can you check the paragraph panel menu and let us know the composer? If it is Adobe world ready, then you wont see the blue underline below the glyph that on hover shows the alternative glyphs...

        -Aman

        T
        TiekerzAuthorCorrect answer
        Inspiring
        December 8, 2017

        Thanks everyone for your help. It isn't on World ready, and it's turned on in advanced, but your suggestions made me think and the solution was too easy

        I checked language settings and discovered my standard language switched to Malayalam (granted, that is weird). I reset it and everything works fine.

        I'll post how to change it in case someone else stumbles upon this thread with the same problem: open InDesign (but not a document) and go to your language settings (command T), set it to your preferred language (dutch in my case) and you're done.

        Cheers!

          Jongware
          Community Expert
          JongwareCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          December 8, 2017

          No idea how ID ever managed to change your default settings on its own (did you recently upgrade from CC2017 to 2018?), but here is the underlying reason:

          OpenType features are grouped primarily per script (different writing systems: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and so on). Only within each group of 'alphabets', features for separate languages may be defined.

          What happens with this font is that it contains features for "Latin" only. Malayalam does not use the "Latin" writing system, and so InDesign tries to find features that apply to either "all" (properly called "DFLT") or this particular script. Which are not there, so you don't get any.

          It happens to work again with your Dutch default because this does have the features defined in the "Latin" group, and the same is true, presumably, for all other European languages that use this particular alphabet.

          A solution from the font creator's side would be to add all of the special features to all of the possible scripts/languages (or possibly to "DFLT" only), but ... there is no reason to! The font does not contain any special features for Malayalam, so as it is, the font "works as intended" – provided you indeed set the language correct!

            Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
            Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices