Strange missing fonts behavior

Horace Smith

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Jan 31, 2003, 11:40:06 AM1/31/03

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FM7, patched on W2000 patched.

I'm getting a strange font problem lately, where files I've worked with quite a long time suddenly pop up the missing font message. To the best of my knowledge I've done nothing to them except print them as pdfs or to my local printer and done nothing to my system.

Anyone seen this?

Thomas Michanek

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Jan 31, 2003, 12:31:37 PM1/31/03

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The most obvious thing I can think of is that you're using
printer-resident fonts in your files. That is, you use fonts
that are made available to FM from the current printer you
have selected, and that aren't actually installed in the OS.

When you open the files with another printer selected, these
fonts are no longer available.

Lesson to learn: install all fonts you use on your system.
Do not depend on printer-resident fonts.

--
/Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert
http://go.to/framers/

Horace Smith

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Jan 31, 2003, 2:25:49 PM1/31/03

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Thomas,

I agree with you 100% - however:

I'm using Times New Roman, Arial, and Verdana, which I believe to be Windows fonts, and I've been using them for a long time with no messages.

And, right after lunch (13:00 here in Houston), I made a few wording changes in a document I've been working on since November, then attempted to Save it as a PDF. Wow, I got a message for every file in the book. However, I closed the book, and reopened, this time no messages.

Thomas Michanek

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Jan 31, 2003, 3:14:17 PM1/31/03

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> I'm using Times New Roman, Arial, and Verdana, which I believe to be
> Windows fonts, and I've been using them for a long time with no messages.

Make sure these fonts really are installed on the computer.
Don't assume, check with the Fonts control panel.

--
/Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert

Technical Communicator, Uppsala, Sweden
http://go.to/framers/

Horace Smith

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Feb 3, 2003, 11:06:42 AM2/3/03

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All installed. As I said, I've been working with these files a long time with no problems. In fact, I printed the thing in the morning, and started getting the messages that PM.

What's worse, the missing font is Courier Bold. I've been using FM since 5.0, and HAVE NEVER EVER USED COURIER BOLD. I have rarely used plain Courier, and not in the document in question.

Tim Murray

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Feb 3, 2003, 11:50:29 AM2/3/03

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All you need is one single character, even a space, and your done for. Since Frame normally pastes text *and* formatting, could it be a paste from something with Courier? And you said "all installed" -- but it looks like Courier is not installed. Is it?

Thomas Michanek

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Feb 3, 2003, 11:56:08 AM2/3/03

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Is it possible that the files recently have been edited on
another computer system, perhaps Macs or UNIX boxes?
Have you sent the files off to someone else, got them back
and replaced the originals?

Have you or someone else installed or uninstalled any font
handling program, such as ATM, perhaps without your knowledge?
Have you fiddled with the maker.ini file recently?

Or, have your printer instances been changed or recreated
on your system? New printer drivers installed by IS?

You said:
> What's worse, the missing font is Courier Bold.

But earlier you said:
> I'm using Times New Roman, Arial, and Verdana,

which I interpreted as the fonts being reported as unavailable.

So, exactly which font(s) are being replaced? (This won't really
help in the troubleshooting; I just want to check you got the
messages right)

--
/Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert

http://go.to/framers/

Thomas Michanek

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Feb 3, 2003, 12:04:45 PM2/3/03

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Seeing Tim's message, I should point out that when I said

"Make sure these fonts really are installed on the computer"

I meant the fonts being reported as unavailable.

Pretty obvious, if you think about it :-)

Horace Smith

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Feb 3, 2003, 3:15:50 PM2/3/03

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Folks,

Never been off my computer. In fact, I had never even backed it up to the network until this morning. Network is Windows, NT I think. And the engineering department that I'm part of has its own network guy. He actually installed my W2000. The regular IS doesn't touch engineering computers.

FrameMaker says the missing font is Courier Bold, but I'm only using the fonts I named. What I actually have installed is the Courier New family, including Courier New Bold, but the message distinctly says Courier Bold, no new included.

And, today, when I opened the files, everything went smoothly. No messages.

Maybe it fixed itself.

Sheila Carlisle

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Feb 3, 2003, 3:30:59 PM2/3/03

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I wonder if there's something funky with the version of Courier that you're using (or, more precisely, that FM is using based on the specific printer it thinks is the default printer), Horace.

Some old printers and O/S versions had Couriers that didn't come with a real "bold" face, but instead bold was faked by the digital equivalent to double-striking the key on an old typewriter.

Another clue to check is the difference between the names "Courier-Bold" and "Courier New Bold". AFAIK, just the word "Courier" by itself means that it's a Postscript font, but "Courier New" is a TrueType font.

Horace Smith

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Feb 3, 2003, 4:50:02 PM2/3/03

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Alas,

It may have fixed itself in that one book, but its back in force in another. Same problem, except that this book originally came from Word and has been around the block. However, I don't think it ever had Courier bold.

Thanks for the font info, Sheila. Yes, the new stuff is truetype. However, the printer is either my LJ6 or Distiller.

Sheila Carlisle

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Feb 3, 2003, 5:34:09 PM2/3/03

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Is it an LaserJet6, or a 6MP (meaning it has Postscript)?

As a test, have you tried:

--have Distiller set as your system default printer, then create a new FM document, import the problem Word files -- does the problem happen?

-- now change to the LJ6 as the default printer, and try printing -- does the problem happen?

I really, really think it's a mismatch between the fonts that the printer has and those that Distiller knows about, and it happens depending on which printer you have set as your system printer when the doc is either created originally or later edited in FM.

It can be a bear to toubleshoot sometimes because it depends on what fonts Distiller knows about, and what printer was the default when the doc was created.

Thomas Michanek

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Feb 3, 2003, 5:16:02 PM2/3/03

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> FrameMaker says the missing font is Courier Bold,
> but I'm only using the fonts I named.

No, you're not. You may think your files don't include references
to Courier Bold, but they do. Somewhere. Behind your back.

You either install the PostScript Type 1 font "Courier" on your system,
or you uncheck the Preference "Remember Missing Font Names" and then reopen
and resave your documents. Don't do the latter if you're not 100% sure
the fonts being reported as missing really aren't used in the files.

> And, today, when I opened the files, everything went smoothly. No
messages.

I'm willing to bet you have changed the printer in between.
Or maybe there really are bugs in FM7 :-)

--
/Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert

Sheila Carlisle

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Feb 3, 2003, 5:41:05 PM2/3/03

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An LOR/Fonts doesn't really tell all the font story, unfortunately.

FM has many places it uses fonts when a new document is created -- e.g. for the default paratags that you might not have existing in your doc, but those tags are in the Paragraph catalog. Or for text lines on the reference page, or tags that are called in a table format but you don't have any tables with that tag actually used in the document.

So even though you accept the substitution, that doesn't mean that the LOR of a doc would find them. Even a MIF of the file might not reveal them, because the default catalogs are built-in to FM (on the PC some info is in maker.ini, not sure about Macs).

Horace Smith

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Feb 4, 2003, 10:03:49 AM2/4/03

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Thomas,

I did send the file to an LJ4, and, of course, that has Courier Bold as an INtellifont. But, since I never use anything but a Windows platform, I never check the box about using font substitutions.

But I guess that's where it picked it up.

Thanks, everyone.

Margaret Leader

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Feb 6, 2003, 7:41:46 PM2/6/03

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Hi all,
Frame 6, Win98
I am a Frame newbie and seem to have the same problem as Horace Smith. But the thing is, it's stopping me from updating the TOC because the Update Book process falls over with the message: "FM did not update the generated files because of errors such as: Couldn't open Installation.fm."
This was the first I knew of it. When I then opened the offending chapter file, the missing font as listed in the Console was "Times-Roman". I have never heard of this font. I am only using the template and fonts specified by the client. Those fonts include Times New Roman.
How do I fix this problem so that I can update my TOC?
Thanks,
Margaret.

Margaret Leader

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Feb 6, 2003, 8:15:32 PM2/6/03

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Hi again all,
Have fixed the problem by unchecking the Remember missing font names checkbox. The reason I did not do this before was that the client's template user guide said never to do this as the file is permanently overwritten. But since the Console seemed to be telling me that TNR would be used and that was the font I wanted anyway, I went ahead and did it. Result: updated TOC and book, all pages numbers fixed etc.
Would still be interested to hear any comments you may have.
Margaret.

Horace Smith

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Feb 7, 2003, 10:42:35 AM2/7/03

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I have a further question about my "answer" to the problem. I occasionally use the LJ4 with the Courier Bold on it. Am I always going to pick up that font substitution, even though I don't use Courier Bold in the document, or at least I can't find where it is.
I do not check the box to remember the missing font. W2000, FM7.

Tim Murray

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Feb 7, 2003, 8:24:23 PM2/7/03

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No, Courier Bold won't force its way into the doc.

Horace Smith

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Feb 10, 2003, 4:29:20 PM2/10/03

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Thanks, Tim.

Bill Swallow

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Feb 13, 2003, 2:04:13 PM2/13/03

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Try checking the floating text on the reference pages.

Asinger

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Feb 13, 2003, 1:41:13 PM2/13/03

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Though I'm running Frame 7 on a Mac, I've had a similar problem often. I open a doc and Frame says X font is missing, and it's a font we never, ever use or ever have used. It's nowhere even in the document. I got rid of the messages by deselecting the Frame Preference, Remember Missing Font Names. However, that does not explain why Frame starts giving these errors for fonts that have never been used in a document. Even if I provide that font on my system, I still get the message. So I can believe that you are having this problem without having made any changes to the fonts resident on your system.

Karen R Sabog

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Feb 20, 2003, 10:39:58 PM2/20/03

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I got the Missing Fonts messages when opening up a FrameMaker 7.0
Windows file with FrameMaker 7.0 Mac when the general preference for
Product Interface was set to "Structured FrameMaker." For example,
it wanted to substitute Arial-Black for Helvetica-Bold. If I changed
the Product Interface to "FrameMaker," the problem went away. Why
does this happen?

Thanks, Karen

Asinger <asi...@cyberwolfinc.com> wrote in message news:<1de7a...@WebX.la2eafNXanI>...