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Lars Møller
Participant
December 18, 2018
Answered

Font working in Word but not Indesign?

  • December 18, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 6842 views

I have imported a Word doc with a Kyrgyzstan variation of the cyrillic font, and some of the letters are displayed with a box with question mark inside. The text displays nicely in Word, even with other fonts (Calibri, Myriad, Helvetica, etc.). I suppose this is a problem or an adjustment in InDesign.

Can anybody help?

Thanks,

Lars

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

    It has to do with your font. Sounds like the Word document didn't use a Unicode font so characters are missing when imported into InDesign.

    Make sure the font you're using in both Word and InDesign is an OpenType (Unicode) version and not an older TrueType or PostScript version. You can see this in the font's Properties; look for the words OpenType or Unicode in its description.

    Unicode is the current font standard for the entire computer industry (since 2000). It uses a "universal" character encoding that maps each glyph of the world's languages to a unique codepoint (such as U+00E9 for e acute é). Unicode also maps punctuation, symbols, STEM symbols, dingbats, emojis, etc.

    Unicode fonts ensure that the exact character is used in Word, and is also carried through into InDesign.

    The characters are retained as the document moves between computers or software programs or even technologies (such as from Word to HTML).

    I have an older, archived blog post on what's causing this at https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2013_12-03/unicode-accessibility.html

    A good source of OpenType/Unicode fonts is https://fonts.google.com 

    Since you're looking for a specific language, the Noto family of fonts might have a font that works for you. The font family is being built out to eventually have the world's languages. See https://fonts.google.com/?query=noto

    Also, use the Language search box on the right side to look for fonts for your specific language.

    3 replies

    Willi Adelberger
    Community Expert
    Willi AdelbergerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 21, 2019

    Microsoft installs their fonts on a privat place where other programs cannot find them. On the Mac each Microsoft Application has its own font folder which is included in the Program Package. You can see them, with right mouse click on any program icon, like Word or PowerPoint or any other Program Symbol if you choose from the context menu "Show Package Content" (or similar as I use the German version and I try to translate the Menu Item from "Paketinhalt zeigen".

    This can cause the issue that a font works fine in Word but other programs cannot find the very same font and use a different for displaying the same text.

      riatiamaria
      riatiamaria
      Participant
      February 21, 2019

      Oh.. I can see how this could have been the cause of the issue.

      Thanks so much for the explanation!

      Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
      Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
      Legend
      February 21, 2019

      The clue I read in your original post was this:

      "some of the letters are displayed with a box with question mark inside."

      That's called "font tofu" because the little white boxes look like a block of soybean tofu. Sometimes the tofu will have a little question mark in it, other times not; depends upon the software program.

      Tofu shows that the text is asking for a specific character that's not on the font you're using. Think of the tofu as a placeholder for the missing character.

      The solution:

      1. Use Unicode/OpenType fonts exclusively because they use the correct codepoints for each character.
      2. Use a Unicode/OpenType font that has the specific character that's missing. Just because Unicode gives a codepoint to every character of the world's languages, punctuation, symbols, etc. (approx. 64,000 of them!), doesn't mean that every Unicode/OpenType font has all 64,000 characters on it. Most fonts have have 800 - 3000 characters, far less than 64,000.
      3. Make sure the fonts are installed correctly for your software and operating system. And if you're using a font management program, that the fonts are activated.

      We're glad to help!

      |    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
      Steve Werner
      Community Expert
      Steve WernerCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      December 18, 2018

      That said, there's one more thing you could try. Sometimes if you place the font in InDesign's private Fonts folder, it can be read.

      It's found in the folder where the InDesign version you're using is located. On my Mac, in InDesign CC 2019, it's in this path:

      Applications > Adobe InDesign CC 2019 > Fonts.

      In Windows or a different InDesign version, it would be in the equivalent location.

      riatiamaria
      riatiamaria
      Participant
      February 20, 2019

      I also have a similar issue:

      There is an Indian scripture font called Nirmala UI that I have in a word doc.

      When I import this document into InDesign, some of the characters change even though the fonts are the same. I do not want the characters to change because it’s creating spelling mistakes in the Indian language.

      Is there a way to import the file and making sure the font won’t change the characters? I’ve even tried to copy and paste manually, and the same thing happens – it pastes something else, similar alphabet family but not the correct one that I had in my original word doc.

      Please let me know if you have any tips!
      Thank you for your help in advance!

      Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
      Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.comCorrect answer
      Legend
      February 21, 2019

      It has to do with your font. Sounds like the Word document didn't use a Unicode font so characters are missing when imported into InDesign.

      Make sure the font you're using in both Word and InDesign is an OpenType (Unicode) version and not an older TrueType or PostScript version. You can see this in the font's Properties; look for the words OpenType or Unicode in its description.

      Unicode is the current font standard for the entire computer industry (since 2000). It uses a "universal" character encoding that maps each glyph of the world's languages to a unique codepoint (such as U+00E9 for e acute é). Unicode also maps punctuation, symbols, STEM symbols, dingbats, emojis, etc.

      Unicode fonts ensure that the exact character is used in Word, and is also carried through into InDesign.

      The characters are retained as the document moves between computers or software programs or even technologies (such as from Word to HTML).

      I have an older, archived blog post on what's causing this at https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2013_12-03/unicode-accessibility.html

      A good source of OpenType/Unicode fonts is https://fonts.google.com 

      Since you're looking for a specific language, the Noto family of fonts might have a font that works for you. The font family is being built out to eventually have the world's languages. See https://fonts.google.com/?query=noto

      Also, use the Language search box on the right side to look for fonts for your specific language.

      |    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
        Steve Werner
        Community Expert
        Steve WernerCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        December 18, 2018

        It could be that the font is somewhat malformed. InDesign and underlying machinery used by Adobe Creative Cloud apps which use its type engines are more particular about the fonts they accept than Word. They will sometimes refuse to display a font that is too malformed.

        Bottom line: Look for a different Cyrillic font.

        Word is not particular about "garbage" fonts, and also does a much poorer job with typography. As an example, if a glyph is missing, Word will substitute one without telling you while InDesign shows an "box" character. When you choose italic in a font that doesn't have it, Word doesn't tell you but it will artificially slant it; InDesign won't offer italic for a font that doesn't have it.

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