Showing Times New Roman as Symbol italic (= square signs)

[Joninen]

Hi!

I've placed Word text (with Mathtype equations) to Mac InDesign, and some of the alphabets in the text (I don't mean the converted Mathtype equations) is shown as squares. So it doesn't recognize the font / sign. According to InDesign, the 'fonts' are Symbol Italic or Symbol Bold Italic – which actually doesn't exist as a font. There is only plain version from Symbol font.

I got the Word text (with the Mathtype equations) from my client who uses Windows. I also have the MathTools which should show the Mathtype equations text as fonts (instead of converting them) in InDesign.

But the primary challenge is to see those 'square' fonts as fonts (there are not many of them).

- What could be the issue?

Thank's!

Johnny

[Eric Dumas]

Hi,

Often a font used in Windows, even if it has an equivalent on your Mac will not be recognised automatically. The font name is not always recognised accurately. So try this:

• Type Menu
• Find Font...
• A yellow triangular warning will flag the fonts that cause an issue
• You can select the flagged font and select your own font instead.

Another rare possibility is that the font you have does not have the characters typed by your client and might need to be updated.

[Joninen]

I did that. But the challenge after that is to find a font which shows the original 'signs.'

I asked few days ago (here in the forum) about any Adobe math fonts – zero answers.

I must be in a 'black hole' at the moment

Thank's anyway

Johnny

[Eric Dumas]

Can you add a screenshot, that might help us locate the correct font.

[Joninen]

Yep, here is the screenshot.

Just the original text placed on InDesign (there are all kinds of notes left in the text...).

Johnny

[Eric Dumas]

can you also share a screenshot of MS Word to see which characters are missing?

thanks

[Joninen]

Of course, just remembered it as well

[Joninen]

...it will be a complementary book of fysics for highschool students (if that helps recognizing the signs).

Johnny

[Eric Dumas]

Can you confirm that when you highlight the symbol in MS Word it is still in Times New Roman?

I wonder if the client has used a different font for these special characters. I looked at the list of characters in Times New Roman and I could not see it (I was never good at sciences!! I could have missed it)

The 2 options you have is to replace in InDesign the font that would include the characters or you can paste the 'faulty' characters as images (inline graphics) in your InDesign text to replace the 'rectangles'

[Joninen]

By the way, attached is some information I just got from the client (who has done the Word / Mathtype content). I asked about the fonts amd she sent me the information about the fonts.

Does that clarify the issue anyhow...?

Johnny

[Eric Dumas]

I will try to recreate your issue. Maybe the L.C. Greek formatted with the 'Symbol' font is the one causing the issue.

[Joninen]

Yep, good to hear!

Johnny

[Joninen]

How did it go when 'recreating' the issue...?

Johnny

[Joninen]

Hopefully You didn't forget?

Client is waiiiiiiting for my layouts...

Johnny

[Eric Dumas]

Hi here is what I did. I hope it will work for you.

1. I installed the trial version of MathType from Download MathType 7 Desktop - WIRIS Store
   That is the plugin your client seem to use in MS Word to create the equations.
2. From C:\Program Files (x86)\MathType\Fonts I copied all the fonts to a folder called Fonts in the same location as the folder. I also tried to install them in my system Fonts folder and in the Font Management System I use. The point is that InDesign needs to access the 'special' fonts that the document needs
3. I reopened the InDesign document and the squares disappeared.

[Joninen]

Those advices are propably for Windows InDesign, right?

The original question was about the Mac InDesign. But I quess the same steps can be fulfild (in a way or another) in Mac / InDesign?

So basically You copied the Mathtype fonts (from Mathtype fonts folder) in to InDesign fonts folder?

There seems to be a PostScript and TrueType font folder in Mathtype fonts folder. Do I copy those two folders (with fonts in them)? ...or just the fonts without the folders?

Thank's for the advices!

Johnny

[Eric Dumas]

I would copy all the fonts in a 'fonts' folder with your project. I can share a link with all the fonts if you have difficulties find them on your Mac.

[Joninen]

I downloaded all the Mathtype fonts through Suitcase - but it didn't help.

My trial version from Mathtype has ended one or two days ago, but I quess that shouldn't effect the fonts in InDesign? The actual Mathtype equations are seen as vector graphics in InDesign, but now we've been solving this issue with real fonts...

Basically you ment that I should activate all the available fonts from Mathtypes Fonts folder, right?

Johnny

[Joninen]

...shouldn't the whole problem be the missing L.C. Greek font?

Didn't find it in my whole computer...

Mac seems to replace it with that mystic Symbol Italic, and obviously L.C. Greek is an ancient Windows font.

Yep, having the link would be nice

Johnny

[Eric Dumas]

Hi,

I installed MathType on both Windows and Mac. The font for the LC Greek is called Symbol. It should be one of the Symbol one in the folder I mentioned. As you can see from the screenshot below:

1. I created a Word doc with MathType random formulas in it
2. Placed the Word doc in InDesign
3. A couple of things
   1. the Formulas are embedded as EPS in the Word Doc as inline graphic
   2. It works perfectly on the Windows version, not in the Mac one. Somehow, the eps does not work properly on Mac, but I couldn't open the eps in illustrator to 'update' it.
   3. When I open the Word doc on Windows or Mac, it looks ok.
4. So I tried this
   1. Open Word
   2. Double click on the formula
   3. The formula opens in MathType
   4. I selected, File > Save copy as...
   5. Saved it as a pdf
   6. Inserted the pdf formula in InDesign to replace the 'faulty' one

I know replacing each formula maybe is taking too long, so I tried something else

1. Create the file in InDesign on Mac
2. The formula had squares
3. Save the file
4. Open in in InDesign on Windows
5. The formulas worked ok
6. Make a pdf for distribution

I would recommend to email MathType to flag this issue, they might have some advice on how to adjust the preferences for Copy/Paste of formulas to Word so the embedded graphic (formula) works on Mac.

[Joninen]

Ok. Good to hear You tried all that.

Looks like I have these squares in both formulas AND the ordinary text I'm bringing from Word to InDesign (in Mac). There are not many, but several on every page. And in both cases InDesign says it's missing Symbol Italic OR Symbol Bold Italic...

...sorry, they seems to disappear from the text, but not from the formulas (just tried that. It was as You said )

Thank's!

Johnny

[Laubender]

Hi Eric,

thank you for testing this!

FWIW: If one is willing to print InDesign pages to PostScript and distill to PDF there is a slim chance to use Acrobat Distiller to inject the missing font if it is installed system wide. But this needs some further tests.

Regards,
Uwe

[Joninen]

Looks like (from the text) that this is the issue?

Just to let You know.

www.dessci.com/en/support/mathtype/tsn/tsn114.htm

Maybe some of it works in Mac as well...

Johnny

[Laubender]

Hi Johnny,

only found that:

MathType: TechNote 50: Sharing Documents Containing MathType Equations

Regards,
Uwe

[Joninen]

Yes, I can live with the fact that the equations are converted text

...but the thing is - there are squares even in those converted Mathtype equations (in Mac InDesign)

I think the link I just sent in previous mail has the solution. It's made for Windows, but it might work in Mac? The problem is I don't quite understand the advices in that link...

Johnny