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Question

Indesign not recognizing font by same name as other programs

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
March 25, 2022
3 replies
3342 views

Hi there,

I am currently running MacOS Mojave 10.14.6, with InDesign cs6.

Our company is beginning to transition from QuarkXpress 2017 to IDcs6, so we purchased the plug-in program Markzware to convert all of our .qxp files into .idml files. Everything is running smoothly for the most part, but indesign is having trouble recognizing our body copy font as the same in quark and indesign. After converting the file, I open the IDML in indesign and the typical missing font error pops up, only the font is not technically missing. On quark, the font is just called 'Stone Serif' but when looking at it through indesign, it's called "ITC stone serif." On my system, however, the font family is just called 'Stone' and each of the different font styles are listed as 'StoneSer ....'

I found an article which states "the font you are looking for, uses a different internal font name than do QuarkXPress and/or InDesign, and the same font, under a slightly different name, will be available, referring to the exact same font" which is exactly the issue I'm having, but the article provides no solution on how to tell InDesign that the font it's reading is the same one as what it says is missing.

I know that it's not a huge workaround to just use the "Find Fonts.." panel in Indesign and update all of our body text, but we are looking to convert hundreds of files from quark to indesign, so I'd like to see if theres a solution/a way that I can tell indesign to read the font in the same way it does for Quark, so that when I open the new .idml pages in Indesign, I don't have to update the font and style sheets every time I open a new document.

It should be noted as well that it is only creating this issue for two of our fonts, Stone Serif and Matrix. It does not say the fonts are missing for other text we use on the page.

Hopefully the screenshots below help illustrate this issue a bit better. I will also link articles I've already looked at so it's known what I've already tried to fix the issue.

https://www.qppstudio.net/webhelp_xv4/fonts-installed-available-to-quarkxpress-and-indesign.htm

- this page technically is referring to their software, but it is where I saw the information about quark and indesign reading separate file names.

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/kb/error-fonts-currently-available-incopy.html

- tried everything from this thread to no avail.

https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/quick-tip-troubleshooting-font-problems-in-adobe-indesign--cms-24652

- tried everything here as well, and what's even weirder, is under the Library/Application Support/Adobe/ folder, I don't have a fonts folder, only the FontsRecommended and FontsRequired folders.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

A bit of history is in order here in regards to the Stone family of fonts which might explain things a bit.

But before that, you are going to a lot of trouble for nothing to do this now because, come January 2023, your existing Type 1 fonts (which is what your Stone fonts are) will no longer be usable, so this whole undertaking will only be good as long as you never need to open these CS6 converted files in anything Adobe releases after January.

Soooo, back to Stone.

When Stone first came out, in the late 80s, it was packaged as all Mac Type 1 fonts were, with a Font Suitcase and the Outline fonts. Within the Font Suitcase, were the Screen Fonts, which contained the spacing information/font metrics. like so...:

So here's where the naming is confusing. Quark (and other programs back then) used the names of the actual Screen Fonts in their menus (the files on the right of my screengrab), which did not include the initial ITC moniker.. that was only on the name of the enclosing Font Suitcase.

Fast forward to now, and modern font managers don't need the Type 1 screen fonts separately anymore... they read the data from them and then store it internally, but now list everything according to the "Family Name" (which in this case is the name of the Font Suitcase.. i.e. "ITC Stone Informal", etc. hence the different naming.

Since this naming is different than what's in your Quark file, even though they refer to the EXACT SAME Type 1 Outline font, it will show up "missing" until you replace it manually.

So, what to do: As I said, it's literally a waste of time to do this now. If you are serious about this, you need to invest in the OpenType versions of Stone (unfortunately, and weirdly, Adobe does not offer them in their Cloud fonts.. you have to BUY them from a reseller like fonts.com. Be warned: it won't be cheap)... and they have been renamed to "ITC Stone Informal Std...", etc etc, but they are a direct replacement for the Type 1 versions.

A

alywitmerAuthor

Participating Frequently

I created a video illustrating what the issue is at hand a bit better than my typed description:

https://youtu.be/a29GiOtKyHk

jane-e

Community Expert

@alywitmer wrote:
Our company is beginning to transition from QuarkXpress (sic) 2017 to IDcs6

InDesign CS6 (released in 2012) is no longer available for purchase from Adobe. Any copies you find today are likely to be pirated and contain malware. Current plans for legal versions are available through Adobe from this site — click the appropriate tab.

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html

Jane

A

alywitmerAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Jane,

Thanks for your response, however, these are not new downloads of cs6, our office macs are from 2012 and have had Adobe CS6 on them for years. We are only transitioning now to allow more cross-compatibility with the elements we create in photoshop and illustrator. These computers are not capable of running creative cloud as they're still running Mojave 10.14.6.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

Okay, I see that we're both Longposters. 🙂 Let me try to keep this shorter:

1) Yeah, if it's 100% ITC Stone then it's not likely that it's a Markzware bug. I saw it switch from ITC Stone to Stone in your Youtube vid, which if it was done that way by you, then it's not good evidence for a conversion bug anymore.

2) The name I'm talking about is not the filename, you'd need a font editor to change its internal name. "Postscript name" is now what I recall as the font name you'd need to change, but the old Mini that has my old copy of Fontographer on it is in storage right now and hard to access. We can figure it out if you want to try the edit-the-font routine. That's as simple as renaming its internal Postscript name to the screen font name, as Brad showed us in his post below.

3) There's probably going to be no reflow if you buy an OTF of the Stone family, and we write/modify you a script to automate the replacement. You can never assume that the OTF will have exactly the same metrics as your T1, so there might be some reflow leading to overset text, ugly re-rag, that kind of thing. So if you decide to stick with CS6 for the next few years, you can continue using T1 fonts, and so maybe a font replacement script, and/or an edited T1 font, should work for you for the future. But you absolutely must assume that you need to eyeball every layout with the replacement font before you go to print.

4) Which brings me to my last point: it's where I disagree with TSN and Brad and jane-e and all the regulars here who will tell you that you need to upgrade to CC and OTF fonts right away. Brad is basically right, when he says it's a waste of time to do this (fix font name replacements instead of just upgrading) now. I'm disagreeing with him even though he's right.

CC is expensive, and if you're seriously planning to keep 2012 Macs in your workflow, and planning on staying on CS6 for the foreseeable future, you're most likely not working with the kind of revenue stream that would make upgrading everything a cost-effective plan. Please note that two installs of CC per license doesn't mean that two people are licensed to use it. It's meant to cover e.g. one person's desktop and laptop. So you're looking not at four seats of CC, but eight. Plus all new Mac hardware, right? Lots of money. But if you're standardizing on CS6 now, because you prefer working in CS6 to Quark, then you must by default be planning for eventually moving to CC. If you are, then you must be planning on having the money to license all eight seats of CC plus new Mac M1 hardware. If you can't afford to do that now without hesitation... can you assume that you will be ready to do so in a few years? How much longer do you think you can keep ten-year-old Mac hardware running? How about five years from now? I tell you, keeping ye olde Mirror Door G4 running has not been a cost-effective thing for me to do. It's more a matter of it being a point of pride, for me, at this point.

Your long-term plan must include a migration strategy. Expect the price of CC seats to go up, over time, not down. Think about moving to CC sooner rather than later, or consider other alternatives, like Affinity Publisher, or perhaps becoming an Old Mac Hardware Wizard which you will need to be if you want to have your workflow rely upon aging Mac hardware. Also consider that it's getting harder and harder to re-install old CS apps, because Adobe is shutting off the old installation validation servers. So, if it ever comes to pass that you need to reinstall CS6 in the late 2020s or whatever, you can't necessarily assume Adobe will still have the servers up that you need to validate your installations.

<looking back at yet another wordy post> Oh well, I did try to be terse. Good luck! Feel free to post more questions or ask me to edit Peter's old glyph-replacement script for you.

“you'd need a font editor to change its internal name “

I wouldn’t bother. The important pieces to all of this are the Outline fonts, which are the same no matter what the “screen” font are referring to. It makes your job doing the find/replace a bit harder and time consuming, but as you have found, once replaced, things are fine. So, don’t go changing the font’s internal name; that part is good.

From the screen grab, the OP might actually have the first generation of Stone (the clue being the font suitcase having “.t1” at the end). When first released in 1987, Stone’s screen fonts looked like this: (with the numbers 1, 2, 3 defining the different variations).

This proved too silly so the screen fonts were redone in 1992 (to be as I had show in my previous grab.)

“You can never assume that the OTF will have exactly the same metrics as your T1, so there might be some reflow leading to overset text”

True, but from my experience, since I’ve been using the Stone OpenType versions since they were included on the Adobe Font Folio since it was released years ago, I’ve seen no reflow on my existing files. That being said, the OP WILL get reflow anyway because of the conversion from Quark to ID. That’s unavoidable as each handled type differently.
"Brad is basically right, when he says it's a waste of time to do this now. I'm disagreeing with him even though he's right”

Haha! Yup. I guess what I was trying to say, is that converting hundreds of files now might not be the best use of time, script or no script. Sure, at the very least convert them to ID, so you can deal with them when you need to going forward, but deal with the reflow and font replacement on a case by case basis when you need to. I wasn’t saying they should buy OTF now, but offered the warning of the possible necessity soon.

As far as why the OP are getting duplicate or weird name styles is that it was very easy to assign a style (like Bold or Italic) to a font that did not have one, or already WAS bold or italic. e.g. Quark allowed you to select Stone Sans Bold, then could assign Bold to that (so the file now wants “Stone Sans Bold Bold”, when in fact, it should be “Stone Sans Bold Plain”. From my previous experience with Q2ID, the plugin made some guesses at how to handle this. Ironically, opening a Quark file DIRECTLY in InDesign (which you can literally still do with v3 and v4 Quark files in CC2022!!) worked fine with no missing fonts at all.. (just the Alert that they were Type 1 fonts)...

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