InDesign major problems

[#1]

InDesign has two critical deficiencies:

  The font selection software is very problematic. Sometimes selected fonts are applied, and sometimes they are not. The details are myriad.

  The end-of-book footnotes don't allow for renumbering by chapter without a lot of manual work.

  Really poor job of Apple to let these things happen. This is supposed to be a page-layout program. The customer service options are of no help: it is reminiscent of Quark before it became a dinosaur.

Paul

[#2]

InDesign has two critical deficiencies:

  The font selection software is very problematic. Sometimes selected fonts are applied, and sometimes they are not. The details are myriad.

  The end-of-book footnotes don't allow for renumbering by chapter without a lot of manual work.

  Really poor job of Apple to let these things happen. This is supposed to be a page-layout program. The customer service options are of no help: it is reminiscent of Quark before it became a dinosaur.

Paul

[#3]

Which version of InDesign and OS?

(InDesign is an Adobe product, not Apple)

[#4]

Hi Paul:

This is a user-to-user forum, which means that you're venting to other users like you. We can help you figure out how to use the software efficiently but we cannot change the software itself.

I use InDesign everyday and have no issues applying fonts. If you would like us to help you, we will need more information on your workflow, and exactly what is going wrong with the fonts.

By end-of-book footnotes do you mean endnotes? Used correctly, endnotes should renumber automatically after edits. If you would like us to help you, we will need more information on your workflow, and exactly what is going wrong. As a heads up, endnotes are fairly new to InDesign and still have significant room for improvement. With additional information we can figure out if what's going wrong is a limitation of InDesign or if it's a limitation of not understanding how the endnotes work within InDesign.

Really poor job of Apple to let these things happen.

Finally, InDesign was created by Adobe and not Apple. I'm guessing that's just a typo?

~Barb

[#5]

We get it, and are happy to help. We just need more information.

~Barb

[#6]

iOS 10.14.6

InDesign 15.0.2

Yes, I typed my message after a week of frustration. Adobe, not Apple, makes InDesign and I now realize this is a user forum. Thank you for your forbearance.

[#7]

Yes, I typed my message after a week of frustration. Adobe, not Apple, makes InDesign and I now realize this is a user forum. Thank you for your forbearance.

If I import text from a file it will often not apply a font change even though I have stripped all styles (Break link to style for both paragraph and character). I can't find the pattern but the latest one is Janson MT Expert. My workaround was to buy the pro version. The odd thing is that the original InDesign file will display Janson MT Expert as part of the previous setting but won't apply it to anything new.  I've tried manually changing the font, using find/change, and using Find Fonts. Also tried placing the fonts in the same folder with the job.

The end-of-book footnotes: I am importing chapter into a book, using 12 or so different Word files each with about 200 notes. My research tells me that renumbering will work if I break the job into 'stories' but then there doesn't seem to be an elegant way to do this. If there were, I would love to do it.

[#8]

If I import text from a file it will often not apply a font change even though I have stripped all styles (Break link to style for both paragraph and character). I can't find the pattern but the latest one is Janson MT Expert. My workaround was to buy the pro version. The odd thing is that the original InDesign file will display Janson MT Expert as part of the previous setting but won't apply it to anything new.  I've tried manually changing the font, using find/change, and using Find Fonts. Also tried placing the fonts in the same folder with the job.

Let's start with this one.

Files coming in from Word normally pull in overrides. Have you enabled the Style Override Highlighter in the document? (It's the + icon in the top right corner of the Paragraph and Character styles panels.) Did you try selecting a stubborn paragraph and holding Alt/Opt, clicked on both [Basic Paragraph] at the top of the Paragraphs styles panel, and [None] at the top of the Character styles panel? And have you confirmed that Janson MT Expert is correctly installed, and works in a brand new document as expected?

~Barb

[#9]

Hi Bar

Style override, Alt/Opt didn't work but I tried a new doc and the font still didn't work. The font app says it has minor problems. That might be it.

When you can, I am curious about the end-of-book notes: that one will take me a bit of time to re-do.

many thanks,

Paul

[#10]

The font app says it has minor problems. That might be it.

By font app do you mean you are using font management software? If that’s the case have you tried disabling the software and any pugins, and installing the problematic fonts directly into one of the system’s font folders? Is the font mangement software up to date?

[#11]

Just standard Font Book that came with the iMac

[#12]

Can you open a problem document and screen capture your Find Font dialog with Janson MT selected? Something like this where I’ve clicked More Info: