Tab, font, or other formatting change occurring between computers in the same file

[scott_4006]

We are using InDesign on three computers, two PCs (1 Dell, 1 HP) and a Macbook, and are working on the same file in a shared drive. The file is a list of items with ID, Description, Year, and Price. We are aligning columns using the tab key.

The file is appearing the same for the HP and Macbook, both of which were setup a year ago.

When the file is opened with the Dell, which was set up a week ago, either the font (Azo Sans) or the formatting is being affected somehow. The Description reaches slightly further into the page, causing a change in where inDesign is placing the first tab. The next column, Year, is then offset for various items when a Description is a certain length.

For one item, this is on the same file opened by each computer, the Description reaches just before 3" into the page on the HP and Mac, but right at 3" for the Dell, which is causing the first tab to be placed differently. So on the HP and Mac it looks "correct," however on the Dell it appears there is an extra tab for various items.

If I delete the tab on the Dell to make it look "correct" then the file looks off for the HP and Mac.

We have re-downloaded Adobe inDesign and Azo Sans. I also attempted to export User Settings from one computer and import them into the Dell, however that did not work either.

Thank you for any help.

[Joel Cherney]

Glad to see that we have finally figured out the cause of the problem. Scott, do you need help figuring out where your fonts are stored?

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Done. I'll remember not to use humor with you in the future. 

[HeyBishop]

I'm having a similar problem - but I'm not using Indesign, it's with Illustrator and After Effects. Something changed in the past month where the letter spacing has changed. The same AI file (unchanged since October) is now rendering text differently. When copy/pasting from Illustator to AE, it retains the wrong spacing.

The client-provided AI file was created on an Apple computer, I'm on a Windows system. 

Could this be an OS level issue? I dunno.

I explain my issue with examples better here:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-fonts-discussions/text-spacing-not-appearing-correctly/m-p/1500...

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

What was the font? How was it formatted? Without more info, it's impossible to say.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Dave Creamer of IDEAS

It's Lato - mentioned in the link.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

So the first thing would be to check to see if one system is using the Google version and one using the Adobe version. 

I'm assuming the person posting is using Adobe. I would unstall it and install the Google version as a test. 

[jason_2049]

Thank you. Yes, I checked this right away. There was a different designer who worked on our French version, so the first thing I considered was - could this person be using Lato from a different source? I uninstalled the Lato that was already on my system (I believe it was supplied by the client), installed via Adobe fonts, and got the following error when opening the project:

I then tried installing Lato from a variety of sources, including the creator's own website, all with similar results.

Reinstalled the client-provided Lato, and AE opened fine (other than the dodgy spacing).

In retrospect, it occured to me this shouldn't have made a differnce. Everything was fine in October when I did the English version of this project. In November I did the French version, where the problem presented itself. I assumed it had something to do with the use of characters that aren't used in English. At that time, I decided to live with the problem, and just fudge the apperance to 'close enough' and hoped the client wouldn't care. But when it came time to make revisions to the English version, the spacing was all off. Which made rendering patches problematic because you could see the text shift out of wack in the sections of video that had revisions. So that disproved my theory about the French characters being the culpret.

Next, I wondered if there were updates to AE/Illustrator that happened in background causing this problem not present in October. So, I reverted back to ver 24.0 on AE to see if that helped, and it made no difference. For fun, I installed version 25, with the same results.

I've also uninstalled all Windows system updates from the past three months. No change.

[jason_2049]

Oh my gosh... my spelling errors weren't flagged. I'm so embarrassed by my terrible spelling.

[leo.r]

Oh my gosh... my spelling errors weren't flagged. I'm so embarrassed by my terrible spelling.

By @jason_2049

Not your fault, the forum software doesn't flag spelling mistakes automatically, users have to specifically click the spellcheck button (or use 3rd-party spelling solutions). Unless you're using the forum on a regular basis, you're unlikely to be aware of this.