Missing glyphs square boxes that have an X in it

[Mike Witherell]

Hi gang,

File this question under "I thought I should know this by now" but I really don't:

I made an InDesign layout, exported a PDF, then three years later on couldn't find the .indd project. 

Needing to update the PDF layout, I recreated the layout quickly in a new ID file.

I opened the old existing PDF file in Acrobat and exported the text out as a Word docx file.

I placed the word docx file back into the new ID layout.

The problem: In places in the text where font glyph arrow characters are used, it comes in with missing glyph squares (that have an X in the square). 

It seems to be a closed loop, so why am I getting missing glyph Xsquares?

I tried running Peter Kahrel's unicode fixer script, and that fixed them, but why did it occur at all?

[Peter Spier]

When you check the font properties for those glyphs in the PDF do you get the expected font, and is it the same font after placing the Word file? Word has a nasty habit of doing hidden font substitutions on symbols...

[Mike Witherell]

Interesting. Yes, the font seems to be the same (called for by a character style). Is there any resource you know of that describes MS Word font substitution?

[Peter Spier]

I don't, sorry.

Lots of mentions of it here on the forums, however, when people import Word files that have symbols that "work" in Word but are incorrect or missing in InDesign. As I recall Word is reported to incorrectly name the font in use when doing this, but I haven't been able to reproduce it here.

[Mike Witherell]

Thanks so much, Peter. I appreciate your contribution.