Problem with text in idml file

[Jacob Finkelstein]

I'm working between 2 computers. One of them has CS6 so I have to downsave the file.

I have styles set up that align to a baseline grid.

When opening the IDML file in CS6 some of the text frames have the text start at the next line in the baseline grid, causing the text to be in the wrong place and overset. Moving the frame around doesn't help. Making it a bit taller does fix it.

This doesn't happen when opeing the file in CC. Any idea what might be causing this?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

My first thought would be that for all the 'universality' of IDML, spanning a project across 15 years and umpty versions of ID is going to result in some glitches.

[Jacob Finkelstein]

True. But not helpful. Thanks X(

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I'm not sure there is any working "help" for such things, except to not switch between versions. Just maybe someone knows some secret trick that will prevent this glitch from occurring, but the usual fix is to export to IDML and open/resave as INDD... which is inherent in your workflow.

You do know you can install the Adobe apps on up to two workstations, as long as you are (in theory) not using them at the same time?

[Jacob Finkelstein]

I'm working between my work computer and my personal computer. Also, my work adobe acct is active on 2 computers already and my personal computer is kinda old and I'm not sure it can handle the latest software.

[Joel Cherney]

You asked for ideas about the cause, not ideas for a fix - the man's being extremely helpful. (He's right, too. )

Sorry, I guess I'm the one not being helpful now. Let me fix that by... suggesting a possible long-shot fix? Have you tried to recompose all stories? It's a rarely used tool that I have honestly never seen in the menus, but the keyboard shortcut (on Windows, anyways) is Control - Alt - /

What it does is force every story in the doc to recompose according to the rules for the paragraph composer for the version you're using, which is what I believe you're triggering when you make the frame a tiny bit taller. Moving the frame wouldn't trigger the recompose, either. But different versions of ID have slightly different versions of the various paragraph and single-line composers. So if you open up your CC23 file in CS6, you're guaranteed some differences in text layout between the composers, so this tool will force text to rerender according to the current composer rules. 

[Jacob Finkelstein]

I appreciate all the help I can get.

Tried recomposing all stories. Didn't work.

PS: in the quick apply menu, that command is under "text and tables"

[rob day]

Can you share the IDML?

[rob day]

Also are you sure the same versions of the fonts are installed on both machines? See Type>Find/Replace Font>More Info to get the version numbers.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Very good point. Mapping to "equivalent" fonts would almost certainly mess up overall text spacing, and if one system dates from >10 years back it's almost certainly got a different font set than the newer one.

[Jacob Finkelstein]

It's the same version of the font. It's Google's Roboto Condensed Light. I recently installed them on both computers.

Now that you mention it, I've been experiencing a wierd issue with a different font in this document at my work computer. It's running macos latest version and I'm using free version of fontbase to manage fonts. Sometimes Arvo bold is considered missing even though it is activated. The font does display correctly. It's just highlighted red like a missing font. Deactivating and reactivating the font didn't fix it. I might have saved out and idml and saved it as an indd that may have worked. Weird right?

[Jacob Finkelstein]

here it is.

[rob day]

Problems with the Google Fonts version conflicting with Adobe Type version of Roboto come up a fair amount.

The Google True type version, which you can download and install in an OS font folder, has a different ascent line than the AdobeType Open Type version, which might auto activate if you have a cloud subscription. I assume the computer with the CS6 version is running CS6 without a subscription, and there is no access to the Adobe Type cloud library? Sounds like your document on the machine with the CC subscription is auto-activating the Adobe Type Roboto

Here you can see the difference in ascent lines between Google’s TT version and Adobe’s Open Type version:

[Willi Adelberger]

Did you save the text frame properties into an object style? Manual overrides or default settings can cause a different result. E.g. where does the first line start relative to the text frame edge? Does it start with CAPS height or with the ACCENT?

[Jacob Finkelstein]

I didn't use any object syles for text frames in this doc. They are just no stroke or fill text frames. This isn't a fancy paragraph style. Its just left justified body text with some space after setting. The text starts one line down on the baseline grid than it should.

Here's something odd. As mentioned, when raising the height of the frame, the text goes to the right place. If the text somehow got too big, shouldn't there be 2 blank lines between paragraphs? But there's only one. Something seems to be affecting only the first line of text in these frames. That's my guess. I uploaded the idml file in a different comment here. You can check it if you want. Although, in cc the idml worked fine.

[Peter Spier]

I downloaded the Roboto fonts from Google Fonts and put them in a Document Fonts folder in the same folder with your .idml file to be sure the same font would be used on all versions of InDesign, then opened the .idml in both CS6 and version 19.3 on Windows 10 on the same computer.

I don't see any differences here. Can you give us a page reference where you see this? How about your OS?

Are you certain you downloaded the font from the same place on both machines? We see this sort of anomaly when someone downloads the "same" font from both Google and Adobe Fonts.

[Luke Jennings3]

Check your advanced type preference settings, they must be consistant between InDesign versions, particularly superscript, subscript & small cap settings.