Apostrophe is Missing in Action

[Mindy Johnson]

In Jaguar and ID2.x, my Times and Helvetica fonts, both OS X system fonts, do not print the ' (apostrophe) character unless I turn off typographers' quotes in Preferences. Even the option-bracket key doesn't produce a typographer's quote when prefs=on and font=times or helvetica.

Anyone have this problem, and/or a cure?

Thanks in advance...

[Monte Harvey]

Yes, someone else has this problem. Using OS X latest update and ID2.02. Haven't investigated further with other fonts but will and get back to you.

[Banyon Norton]

Select the "Download PPD Fonts" checkbox in the Print dialog box. Your printer is using its own versions of Times and Helvetica, which differ from the ones on your computer. Checking this box will force the printer to use the same fonts InDesign is using.

[TedG]

Adobe is aware of this problem, which only seems to affect Time and Helvetica fonts, and in those fonts ONLY the apostrophe. See my forum message of 2/2/03. However, as far as I can see, they do not seem to be concerned about this situation.

Ted G.

[Thomas Phinney]

Does the problem *only* occur in InDesign? Have you tried this in other applications? (My guess is that it will happen in all applications.)

When you say the problem only affects the apostrophe (and by this you mean the curly apostrophe), have you tried any other non-ASCII characters, such as accented characters or curly quotes?

T

[Richard Sohanchyk]

Thomas: You must be joking. I'll say this in as plain English as I possibly can: It only happens in InDesign. Therefore, it is specifically an Adobe screwup. This has NEVER happened in Quark or even PageMaker or any other software program I use. I include all MS products and Corel in that group. In fact, I just found out yesterday that a 5,500 run of a newsletter is missing every single apostrophe. No one caught it until after it was mailed out and some residents (it was a village newsletter) called to complain. I had to give the town a 15% discount on the job to.

Number 2: Helvetica and Times Roman are probably the two most frequently used fonts and not using either of them is not remotely a possibility. As a result of the misprint, this client has become the second customer in less than 3 weeks specify in writing that I am not authorized to use InDesign to design their materials. I love InDesign's potential but I live in the real world. Quark it is for these two clients.

It blows my mind that one specific character doesn't print. What could Adobe possibly have done in coding InDesign that discards one frequently used character in the two most frequently used fonts in the universe. I use Quark and PageMaker (very rarely) on several X machines and this simply does not occur ever.

[Don Picard]

What could Adobe possibly have done in coding InDesign that discards one
frequently used character in the two most frequently used fonts in the
universe.

And more interestingly, what could Adobe have done in coding your particular copy of InDesign that is different from my copy of InDeisgn and that of hundreds of thousands of other users that print the curly apostophe's correctly in InDesign?

Sounds like some sort of font conflict on your system of some odd sort to me, as InDesign seems to handle fonts differently that other apps. Or perhaps something corrupt in one of the varioius prefs files.

Odd problem, and one I've never seen in spite of the fact I use Helvetical and Times Roman in half the stuff I do in InDesign.

Don

[Richard Sohanchyk]

Don: After I calmed down, I ran out a test file here and at several printers I use locally; 4 in all excluding my shop. This includes submitting the file that misprinted and opening a new doc and typing a short paragraph with a few apostrophes. ALL of them are missing the apostrophe. I use Helvetica Neue Family. Also, I'm talking about one specific font. No other font family that I'm aware of has had this problem, so I'm exactly sure what you mean when you say other users print with no problems. I use Suitcase and only activate the fonts I need, all others are inactive. So I'm not sure where the conflict would be. And how would I check my fonts to see what will print and what won't? In X, my machines won't even let me activate Helvetica and Times that comes with every mac on earth and just about every sw program. From my limited testing, by default, ID will omit apostrophes. Printing from OS9 machine, I might add, solved the problem. Defeats the purpose of X and the dual I spent $3,000 on.

Did you remove any fonts? From what I've read, the conflict seems to be between .dfnts and the PS versions. I want only the PS version of Helve Neue and Times. Can I safely trash the .dfnts and substitute the PS version in the system font folder? Every time I try to severely limit my fonts, I lose functionality, so I end up putting them back. I even tried the ID thing of dropping all doc fonts in the ID font folder and it still lost the apostrophe. I've since learned about checking the "download PPD" option which I've now made a default setting. I've spent about 20 hours messing around on weekends trying to optimize my fonts to no avail. That's a ton of time when I could have and should have been doing billable work.

For me, at this point, fonts are the only issue preventing me from utilizing ID specifically and X in general to my satisfaction. I also cannot print Avante Garde or Palatino from several X machines. I get "system font conflict" even when there are no other AG or Palatino fonts on the machine, let alone in the system folder. I've had to keep 9 on one machine just so I can generate PS files from ID that I can hand off to printers. I'm ready to buy another X machine but at this point I wouldn't feel like I was getting the bang for my bucks that I expect.

All in all, it is incredibly bizarre that X/Adobe/whoever cannot print one character (as far as I know) from the two most frequently used fonts on earth. There isn't a print shop or quick copy shop in the US that doesn't use these two fonts 90% of the time. I set type for 3 small offset house and they have all told me repeatedly, under no circumstances am I to use ID for their stuff. I have to respect that. These folks don't have time or expertise to trouble shoot font issues. That's what they pay me for. And I don't have time to wonder what font is going to screw me this time.

Thanks in advance. Tom: sorry for being snippy but this thing cost me several hundred dollars and I may lose the client.

[Dave Saunders]

Some say that the "d" in "dfonts" stands for datafork, but I think disaster is a better word.

There are potential dangers in removing the Apple dfonts (Helve Neue has been particular mentioned as being needed for some part of OS X to function properly -- I forget which part).

My advice would be: move them to some place from which they can be easily retrieved and see what happens. If it becomes apparent that some critical piece of system software now won't function, try putting back in the dfonts (start with Helv Neue) until it will function.

Hopefully, whatever it is, is something you won't need all the time.

There have been other discussions about this here; you might do a search on Neue to see what it shows up.

Dave

[Richard Sohanchyk]

I actually started a thread on fonts way back in August. It's in the archives now and I got dizzy reading what I should move and not move; keep lucidasans only; don't touch anything, etc. After a while, you just need to do some work. So I toggle between my 9 and X machines.

[Ann Shelbourne]

I suspect that if you remove the d.font version of Helvetica Neue and replace it (in the d.fonts folder) with the PS version, your problem will be solved.

[Thomas Phinney]

Knowing that it's Helvetica Neue and not Helvetica (msg #7) is very helpful; that eliminates one potential area.

And no, I wasn't joking when I asked about it happening in all applications. There's a known issue with certain buggy versions of Arial and Times New Roman that causes them to not print correctly to PostScript 3 devices, including losing apostrophes and most characters outside of 7-bit ASCII. It occurred to me that this might be the same bug, in different fonts. If you saw the problem in all apps, that would be evidence that it might be the same problem. So it was a perfectly reasonable question, I think.

My base advice is to make sure that you have only one version of a given font installed. If you want to remove the .dfont Helvetica Neue, place it in a safe place (don't just delete it), and put the Type 1 version in its place, permanently installed (so that anything that relies on the font being installed can still find it).

Regards,

T

[Richard Sohanchyk]

Just so I'm sure of what I'm doing: boot into 9, remove Helv Neue.dfnt from X system font folder (don't delete; store somewhere), replace with PS version of Helv Neue Suitcase. Thanks in advance for your help.

[Ann Shelbourne]

"Noy"

It's German I think.

[Sandee Cohen]

For what it's worth, a few InDesign/OS X users met at the Bay Area ID User's Group meeting last Macworld.

Chuck Weger took it upon himself to delete Helvetica Neue and then check the "iApps" to see if they would work correctly. To the best of our informal test, we couldn't find any problems, especially with the one application that we all had heard required Helvetica Neue, iCal.

So, Richard, do feel comfortable moving the font. But don't delete it entirely since you never know.

Now, I just have one very vital question. How do you pronounce the Neue in Helvetica Neue.

I've heard any of the following:

Noy

Knee-you

Noy-ee

Nouh

Any thoughts?

[Richard Sohanchyk]

I've always pronounced it "knew" as in "I wish I knew how to manage fonts in X."

Incidentally, I was hoping to see Sandee in Philly but I'm on a grand jury right now. I don't know if I'll go yet. I'll say one thing about being on a grand jury: it's pretty sad to hear what people do to each other.

[Sandee Cohen]

Incidentally, I was hoping to see Sandee in Philly but I'm on a grand
jury right now.

Please, if you do attend the event, come up and introduce yourself to me.

[Richard Sohanchyk]

Absolutely. I've been to Philly a few times (I'm a Colonial History buff) so it's always great to go again.

[Ann Shelbourne]

Re Sandee's question in Message #13:

I asked someone who speaks German, and was told that "Neue" is pronounced
NOY-uh.

[Thomas Phinney]

Ann has it exactly, for Helvetica Neue pronunciation.

T

[Roy Miller]

I (using Mac G4 with Jaquar with Indesign) also find that apostrophes are missing on Helvetica and Times Roman.
There is no such problem with any of my other applications.
I found no solution for Helvetica, but use

Times New Roman PS MT with no problem in Indesign.

[Ronald Lanham]

Roy

You may want to check out this thread...

Times New Roman PS MT problem <http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?128@@.1de5a794>

[meepmeep]

We were having a problem with the missing apostrophe. We have three machines with the following:
Mac G4 Mac OS X.2 Indesign 2.0
Mac G4 Mac OS X.2.4 Indesign 2.0
Mac G4 Dual Processor Mac OS X.2 Indesign 2.0.1
All three computers could print in Mac OS 9.2.2 and Indesign with no problem. After upgrading to Mac OS 10.2 and 10.2.4 they were unable to print the Times apostrophe from Indeisgn. All other applications including Microsoft Office were able to print with no problem. Had each person choose the download all fonts option and now they can print with no problem. Have not noticed any problems with Helvetica. We decided not to persue any more upgrades to the Mac OS or Indesign since everything is functioning correctly.
PS. When we upgraded one system from Mac OS X.2 to Mac OS X.2.4 we lost the printer features on our Konica and Minolta printers. We tried to reinstall the drivers but the install program reported they were already there. Mac OS could not automatically find the PPD even thought is was there. I did a search and could not find it either. It was only visible to the install program which would not reinstall the PPD because it was already there. We had to copy the PPD from a functioning machine and manually configure the PPD in order to regain printer functionality in Mac OS X.2.4. Since Indesign was working fine in Mac OS 9.2.2 and we reinstalled the same software in Mac OS X, I think Mac OS X has problems with printing in general.

[Thomas Phinney]

Actually, it's more likely the most recent version of the "Times" font that shipped with Mac OS X was not built properly to coordinate with the same font being built into your printer. I expect that deleting the "dfont" version of Times and sticking with the Type 1 version would also solve the problem.

Regards,

T

[Wayne Guy]

Richard Sohanchyk said,
"You must be joking. I'll say this in as plain English as I possibly can: It only happens in InDesign. Therefore, it is specifically an Adobe screwup..."
That's an interesting thought. But, in my experience this exact problem has been happening in Quark for two years, when using a handful of fonts, including Times New Roman, Helvetica and Gill.

[Richard Sohanchyk]

I've never in nealy 10 years of using quark ever had character dropouts. In nearly 20 years of DTP, ID is the only app that I've ever lost a character. What does happen on occasion is opening PC created docs in Quark or PageMaker or whatever on a Mac will cause some characters to scramble. But when creating a document on the Mac platform, only when I started using ID did these things start happening. Worst, only with Helvetica and Times (to date), the two most popular typefaces on earth.

[Thomas Phinney]

A) There exist, commonly, incorrectly made fonts that match up to core fonts in the PostScript 3 font set.

B) Printing such fonts from ANY application that does not forcibly download the fonts will cause certain characters, such as apostrophes, to disappear. When this problem first occurred, Adobe did some testing, and we saw it with all sorts of applications.

So, I wouldn't be quite so quick to say that *any* instance of this problem is necessarily an Adobe problem, or an InDesign problem.

All this does not preclude the possibility of some InDesign-specific or Adobe-specific problem in some situation, of course.

It also occurs to me that the problem could be a combination of a defective font, a PS device with a "matching" font in ROM, and having a font conflict. It's true that InDesign has its own system for resolving font conflicts, which could result in it using the defective font when another app got the good one. In this situation, would you blame (1) the defective font, (2) the font conflict, or (3) InDesign?

Regards,

T

Thomas Phinney
Fonts Program Manager
Adobe Systems

[Richard Sohanchyk]

Thomas: it is probably an X/ID thing. When I run ID out of 9.2.2 I don't get this problem. Also, since it's a known problem, shouldn't ID, by default, force load fonts to the PPD to avoid this? Dfonts are an inconvenience that I've yet to understand. Maybe for the average user who uses their imac for iLife, they make sense. My home emac runs flawlessly because (I assume) there are no installed fonts on the drive. However, for the DTP professional, fonts have gotten a bit dicey in the implementation of X and ID. Even with all the years of experience I have, implementing a new OS and layout program and maintaining workflow has been time consuming and, at times, frustrating. Having said all that, I still work in X 90% of the time now since it clearly is the way to go and can only get better.

[mkcole]

If I could interject some additional info here...

Being new to OS X, I'm reading everything I can get my hands on. I read in other forums about problems with duplicate fonts, deleting fonts and all the many problems with Apple's new font technology. Downloaded a document from Apple about working with fonts in OS X--UsingFontsinMacOSX_L25032B.pdf. I highly recommend it.

They suggest removing the Helvetica and Helvetica Neue fonts from the system folder and IMMEDIATELY activating the version you want to use from YOUR font location using a font management program. This eliminates the two versions your software app might detect, allows you to use the proper PS font and the OS still knows where to find the Helveticas it needs for functionality. Hope this helps.

[Dave Saunders]

Did you check "Download PPD Fonts" in the Graphics panel of the Print dialogs?

If not, then what you're suffering from is simply a mismatch between the font(s) you're using on your computer and the one(s) embedded in your printer.

Dave

[Marian MacLeod]

Is everyone tired of talking about InDesign's font problem? I just purchased InDesign and downloaded the 2.0.2 version; I, too, cannot get apostrophes to print.

I'm using Times in a brochure. I can SEE the apostrophe on my monitor. But it is not printing out. There is just a space. I tried creating the apostrophe in two different ways and it still won't print. I tried it on two different printers, a LaserWriter Select 360 and an HP DeskJet 1600 CM, both fine printers that handle all my other Adobe and MS programs beautifully. What is happening?

Perhaps you will think I have no business in this forum when I say that I don't understand the various kinds of fonts. I don't know, for instance, which ones to remove when someone says: "I expect that deleting the 'dfont' version of Times and sticking with the Type 1 version would also solve the problem." So, what is a dfont version? A Type 1 version? I went into my system folder and could not see that designation in any of my fonts. I have too many fonts, anyway, and would like to delete some of them. I just don't want to hurt my computer. Please help!

I really miss Zapf Dingbats, which also will not print, because it had a shaded box for people to use to check preferences in brochures, etc. Is there an acceptible alternative font? Adobe says it is an OS X font, but it is not working. I can see it fine on my computer, but it does not print out.

I created a poster (11x17) with InDesign and now can't select any of the text to change it! And it is not printing, either. I used two fonts, Helvetica and Aristocrat LED, used color (regular red, blue, green).

Another problem: Pressing option with PM always gave me a "hand" icon to move the page around. Sometimes in the Text tool I can get this, but not always, and never in the pointer tool. How can I shortcut this step, because it is very useful. And why does the text tool act differently at different times, seemingly a random thing.

[Marian MacLeod]

Thank you, Dave. I did that and it works.

What I am hoping is that enough people complain of this problem that Adobe will see fit to fix it, so we don't have to check that box every time. It's not a very friendly way to solve a big problem.

I appreciate your reply.

Marian

[Diane King]

Hey Marian,

On the document you can't edit the text on, try these things to see if it fixes your problem: Check to make sure that you didn't put the text on the master page. I believe a document always opens to a page not a master, so if you accidentally were working on the master, when you reopen the document, it will be on the page and the master items will be locked unless you command/shift click on them.

The other thing that might be preventing your editing is that you may have a large box drawn over the text that has no color applied to it. This happened to one of our designers once. The box was so big that when you clicked on the page, you couldn't see the frame selection (the edges were off the paste board). She couldn't get to the text boxes through the uncolored massive box. When I went to help her out, I noticed a little dot in the middle of the screen that moved whenever you dragged the mouse (the middle point of the unseen box). I hit delete and everything was fine. To this day, we don't know how that massive box got there!

[Thomas Phinney]

Marian:

If you read the message thread carefully, you'll find that someone (NOT ADOBE) has manufactured a defective font, which they have given the same name as one of the Adobe PostScript fonts built into printers.

If you identify and REMOVE the defective font, and have the correct font (already supplied with your PostScript device, from Adobe), everything should work fine.

One of the ways printers generally work is that they tell the OS and applications not to bother downloading fonts that are already built into the printer. These fonts are listed in the "PPD" file (PostScript Printer Description). This is considered a feature by most users, and not something that people want to lose.

So, checking the option to "download PPD fonts" is about the only reasonable way out. You can also edit your PPD file to delete all listed fonts, and reinstall your printer, so the system believes your printer has no fonts built in, and then it will always download no matter what.

T