No bold/italic from word XP

[ivo radja]

I know this topic was addressed before, but no real explanations or solutions were presented.
So, I've just formatted my drive, and installed Win XP SP1, Office XP SP2 and Indesign 2
When I try to import a file created in Word with Arial normal and bold fonts, Indesign displays only Arial normal. No error messages are displayed.
In fonts windows\fonts folder there are Arial, Arial bold, Arial italic etc.
When I try to import a word file created on win 98\office 2000, everything forks fine...
Guess it has to do something with open type feature...
Please help!!!

[George Bilalis]

Ivo,

but no real explanations or solutions were presented.

The explanation was given,though for solutions... it's another subject.

Word is using 'faux' italic and 'faux' bold, that is electronic bolding and italics, as if there were no true italics and bold typefaces. This is done by in-line commands for each. InDesign is explicit in using true bold and italic typefaces.
Thus the result.

(One program's simplistic approach to word processing, becomes another's problem).

Using styles in Word (well defined) with proper equivalents in InDesign would help, if that was the case...

George

[ivo radja]

But what about word files created on win 98 and office 2000? They work fine in Indesign!

[Dave Saunders]

Not if they have the same issue with bold and italic they don't. This issue of faux bold and italic is not dependent on the version of Word nor even the platform.

Dave

[Dave Saunders]

It all depends on which font you're using. There's no such thing as bold and/or italic just by themselves.

InDesign will only let you use real fonts if they exist. If they don't then you'll see what you're seeing. The bold and italic encoding is still there and will spring into life if you change the font to something that has bold and italic variants.

Dave

[ivo radja]

OK, I've just made word document containing bold, normal and italic using win xp and office xp, imported it in indesign and guess what; no bold, no italic.
Then I've saved that file on a floppy, and opened it on notebook running win 98, office 2000, saved it and again import it in indesign. Guess what, bold is there, italic is there...
Once again, I've formated my pc TODAY, installed winXP, indesign and office ONLY

[ivo radja]

OK guys, when installing windows xp, certain fonts are installed. For test purposes I've used Ariel, and in fonts folder there are: Ariel, Ariel bold, Ariel italic, Ariel Bolditalic etc.
I know everything about faux bold and how it works in word or quark, and how that isn’t the-way-to-go, and how indesign does the proper job, but it doesn’t work for me!
Please tell me something I dont know...
Thanks

[Dave Saunders]

Dominic,

You made my point by immediately having to name a font.

Ivo,

After you import to ID, is the font still Arial or has it changed to something else?

Dave

[Dominic Hurley]

"There's no such thing as bold and/or italic just by themselves." Eh? What do you mean? There are certainly bold and italic fonts that exist by themselves - you can install the bold style only of Times New Roman for example, and use only that.

"The bold and italic encoding is still there and will spring into life if you change the font to something that has bold and italic variants". Again, I don't know what you mean. Fonts under Windows may be style linked; that is, the designer may specify that if the user chooses Garamond and then bolds it they will get Garamond Semibold, or they may decide to link it so that bolding Garamond gives you Garamond Bold. But however they are linked, the variant font styles have to be installed, and each variant has its own file (if it's TrueType or OpenType) or files (if it's Type 1). As George says, some apps will fake bold and itals if the actual font isn't installed, but these faux fonts are not to be recommended.

Under Windows, apps do not show the variant linked styles as a separate font (as Macs do). Some apps, like InDesign or FrameMaker, will show you the font and the styles installed in two adjoining dialogues, but that is not quite the same thing (although to all intents and purposes it is). Font styles that are not linked will show up as separate fonts (eg, Arial Black or Arial Narrow). When using Windows, you simply have to know what fonts you have installed and you have to know what apps will fake fonts so that you don't run into problems, but if you're using ID I really think you should have that basic level of understanding of font issues anyway.

[ivo radja]

Font in Indesign is still Arial, as Indesign would say "regular". No error messages upon import are displayed...
Tried with other fonts as well...

[Dominic Hurley]

Re "You made my point by immediately having to name a font." I don't see how. I don't need to install the roman version of Times New Roman to use the bold version. If you're taking a philosophical line that TNR bold doesn't exist on its own and is defined simply in relation to a roman font, then on that same basis you could that there is no TNR, because the base font of TNR is just the roman version, and then where does that leave you? With no fonts at all? Or some non-weight, non-sloped concept of TNR floating around in the ether? Fun as this concept might be to discuss, I don't think that's what you were referring to it when you wrote that "There's no such thing as bold and/or italic just by themselves ... The bold and italic encoding ... will spring into life". I'd like to understand what you meant by that, but on the face of it it's just wrong. There is no code that simply attachs itself to a font to make it bold, unless you're talking about the process by which apps fake fonts. Is that what you meant?

Ivo

Can you apply the fonts in ID? That is, is it simply a question of importing the file with local formatting intact? Or can you not use the fonts at all?

[ivo radja]

Yes, in ID all fonts are available. I can apply bold, italic etc...

[Dominic Hurley]

So the problem is really just one of importing files with local formatting intact? If so, I suggest you read the recent threads on this matter; I gather there have been a few problems with ID's importation of Word files. I haven't paid too much attention because I always strip out formatting and convert to tagged text. Saves me a lot of aggravation with hassles of this kind.

Dominic

Dominic

[Dave Saunders]

Dom,

What I meant was that ivo was discussing bold and italic without reference to font. He mentioned Arial in his Word documents but didn't say what he was getting in InDesign (he since has). If the font was being converted to something on input that doesn't have bold and italic then that would explain the behavior he was observing.

We seem to have moved on.

It sounds as though Ivo is now able to assign bold and italic in Indesign but still not able to import them in a Word document.

This is mysterious. While there are some problems in this area (usually caused by a failure to understand faux fonts but sometimes caused by not understanding the frailty of local styling when applying paragraph styles after import), I've never heard of a case where bold and italics were lost in the way that Ivo is describing.

Possibily the problem has to do with duplicate fonts. InDesign might have its own Arial installed in one of the Adobe font folders and that is interacting with the one that Ivo knows about and which Word is using in such a fashion as to cause this problem.

Dave

[ivo radja]

To summarize the problem:
1. Clean windows install, then office XP and ID 2 where added
2. Then I've created a new word document using Arial, and applying bold and italic styles to some of the text
3. Import in new ID document, no error messages upon import and no bold or italic Arial, just regular Arial, like no formatting was applied to word doc. (yes, Retain format was selected in "Place" dialog box)
4. In ID I can apply font styles (bold, italic)
4. When that same word doc is opened and saved on PC running win 98 and office 2000, transferred back and imported in ID, ID preserves font formatting, and the text looks as it should.
Are you guys using win XP or some other operating system?

[Guy Smiley]

Have you tried saving from Word as Rich Text Format, and then placing that in InDesign?

--Mike Nitabach

[ivo radja]

Yes, rtf does not work (same se .doc format)
:-(

[Dominic Hurley]

I really don't think this is anything to do with fonts "interacting" or some strange side-effect of using OpenType fonts (besides which, the version of Arial that ships with some Adobe products is named so as to avoid conflicts with Microsoft's Arial). I think it's just a case of ID's importing of Word files not being perfect. In another thread, strange codes coming in with a Word file caused glyphs to hang over the margins and many people have posted about the problems with importing Word files with character and paragraph styles applied. Bottom line is, I've never trusted Word files coming into any publishing app and always recommend importing Word files as tagged text.

[Dave Saunders]

Ivo,

Unfortunately, the two people who've taken most interest in your thread are Dominic who doesn't do Word imports and me who does them on a Mac.

It seems you've encountered a weird bug with a particular version of Word on a particular OS.

I note from your topic intro that you don't mention which update of ID 2 you're using. If less than 2.0.2, I recommend updating to it.

Dave

[Rod Hewitt]

Most important keystrokes in Word are Ctrl-Q (Remove paragraph
formatting) and Ctrl-space (Remove manual character formatting).

Pity they aren't better known.

Also - use of "Style area width" in so-called Normal view. I have
introduced many people to this and it certainly seems to help in getting
Word users to understand a bit more about what they are doing. Mind,
most of them hate Normal view!

Rod

[ivo radja]

Thanks Rod, I've considered my self a power word user, but it’s never too late to learn something...
I'm using ID 2.0.1 CE, but the same thing happened when I tried it with ID 2.0.2...