Japanese Quark switch to InDesign - font issues

[Jeremy Inman]

I work with a designer in Tokyo to do the DTP on my Japanese-translated brochures, etc. As I am moving from Quark to InDesign 2 for my workflow, I am trying to get my international DTP partners to do the same.

I am in discussion with my designer in Japan and he said he does not want to move to InDesign and his reasons include the following:

2) AID provides only a few Japanese fonts in the open type format, failing to satisfy designers' needs for
as high creativity in design as being required currently.
3) Japanese fonts are unreasonably expensive. Many designers are unwilling to "abandon" the existing font assets: Usually a single font set of a particular style costs $300-$500.
4) In AID, one can use part of the existing Japanese fonts, but even so, Japanese fonts and English fonts are
incompatible in the case of the open type format. (One has to buy new sets of open format Japanese fonts)
5) AID costs $9000.

I know #5 can't be correct, but can someone tell me more about fonts... Will he have to abandon any of the fonts that he currently uses in Japanese Quark 4?

Will I be able to open InDesign files with Japanese fonts in them whether they are created in English InDesign 2 or Japanese InDesign 2? I have a G4 running OS 10.2.5.

Thanks for any help.
Jeremy

[Marco Antonio SantaMaria]

He might need to read more about InDesign Japanese version. It was especifically written to tackle the limitations of typesetting Japanese text. According to Adobe you will be able to Open a Japanese version with the English version, BUT you will not be able top edit the file because the English version does not has all the CJK plug-ins for editing Asian text. From waht I have seen it will handle Japanese text much, MUCH better than its compettitor, QXPJ, which our company bought and used for a while. The only difference in qxp was dicitonaries and the ability to typeset Japanese text really poorly?similar to the qxp English version.

Coming back to InDesign. The JP version open the English version and you can edit the text. So you know, I have been using my Englsih version of InDesign to typeset Japanese, Chinese, Simplify and Traditional, Korean and other left to right languages without too much trouble. I am able to mix fonts to my heart desire: OpenType, TruType, PS1, and even dFonts; and again I haven't seen too many problems.

I am hoping that Adobe will improve the capabilities of InDesign to be more compatible with the JP version or any other language, so I can realy work in a multi-;ingual application for all my needs.

Here is more info for the JP verison of InDesign:

<http://www.adobe.co.jp/products/indesign/main.html>

I believe that when he reads more about InDesign he will be able to make a better choice of pagelayout.

[Marco Antonio SantaMaria]

Plus tell your disgner he can use the same fonts he was using when creating documents in qxpj.

The hardest thing would be making sure that your OS Xs font are working correctly.

[Thomas Phinney]

I'm not sure whether OCF fonts (an ancient and obsolete format) are still supported by InDesign J. I know that CID fonts are.

I'm a little confused by the argument that seems to say that not enough OpenType fonts are available to make InDesign worthwhile. InDesign can work with older fonts, and the extra capabilities it has with OpenType fonts are essentially a "bonus."

Also, not only does InDesign J come with several very high quality Japanese OpenType fonts from Adobe, but Morisawa and TypeBank both make Japanese OpenType fonts.

I believe the cost of InDesign J is proportional to the US price, although the added features might make a difference. I would be very surprised if it were anything like $9000.

Regards,

T

Thomas Phinney
Fonts Program Mgr.
Adobe Systems

[Olav Kvern]

Jeremy--

The J versions of PageMaker and QuarkXPress are essentially just the Roman version with Japanese dictionaries and text directions tacked on. Neither application has Japanese/Asian grid-based composition. InDesignJ, by contrast, has a full set of Japanese-specific composition features.

As Mr. Phinney points out, InDesign is compatible with most current font formats. InDesignJ costs about $900 US. For the differnce between that and the price of QuarkXPressJ, your friend should be able to buy quite a few nice OpenType fonts.<g>

Next, InDesign can create composite fonts from any compatible font format, giving you the ability to use the J glyphs from one font, the Roman characters from another, and the symbols from yet another, should you so desire.

As Marco points out, both versions of InDesign can open files in either format.

Thanks,

Ole

[Thomas Phinney]

"Mr. Phinney"? Gee, you can call me Tom, if I can call you Ole.

:)

[Richard Sohanchyk]

Marco: I remember you posting how you have Font Reserve set up to run smoothly. Could you please email that to me. Just click my name. Thanks.

[Richard Sohanchyk]

Sorry for the left field post of few weeks ago. I was looking for Marco and this is where he popped up in the search menu.

I just completed my first job in Japanese this morning. The client sent me word doc prepared in J by professional translator that I then imported into ID using Osaka. I could print live files and PDF's here in office. I sent the printer a PDF file and he couldn't queue it to his AB Dick DPM2000 platemaker. Even more surprising, he couldn't download the ps file I sent to his platemaker either. We finally scanned my bw printout and printed from that. Any suggestions? Should I have used one of the other Japanese fonts? Oh - even though he's running X, he couldn't print from my live file which is how the whole thing with PDF and PS came about. I think he's running 10.1. Thanks.

[Marco Antonio SantaMaria]

No the issue here is more than just having the same fonts. His Hardware might not support the CID font on your PDF, or even the rip does not like the Asian Characters. What you can do is to convert the text to outlines to get rid off the fonts information in a copy of your document. This is the process the company I work for has taken because very few printer around here support Asian Languages, and those that would like bought equipment that are not compatible with Double bite fonts.

If your vvendor has a copy of InDesign he probably can output the docuemnt without any problems. He just need to make ssure that his setting for Printing in the graphics area are set to Fonts : Subset, and that Download Fonts to PPD is checked.

Hope this helps Richard.

[Richard Sohanchyk]

Thanks.