Font issues when in preview or publishing project (Captivate 4)

Report · Nov 27, 2009

Greetings Rick, thanks for your reply!

I should clarify that all the text is within the main project and placed within an ordinary "Text Caption"

Additionally, I have removed the text and ensured that there are no high-bit ascii characters and re-pasted into the Text Caption. I have also created a new Text Caption with clean text. It still looks the same!

More twists:

- If I copy a 'good' text caption to a slide where there is a 'bad' text capture. The 'good' text caption renders correctly in preview.

- If I copy the 'bad' text caption to a slide where there is 'good' text, the 'bad' text still renders incorrectly. This makes it appear that the problem is specific to the Text Caption.

- If I paste/merge the 'bad' text caption text into a 'good' text caption, the 'bad' text caption renders correctly. However, if I delete all the original 'good' text, the other text suddenly renders 'bad' again. It is as if there is something 'bad' in the text. I have even copy/pasted from Notepad (b/c it strips all junk from text).

- Finally, I opened a text caption on a slide with 'bad' text AND on a slide with 'good' text. In both cases, the brand new text caption with the simple words "Test" in bold...line... "Test" in normal Verdana 11... rendered in preview as bad (bold cases).

I tried a number of other tests and came to the conclusion that .... oh I don't know! This is nuts!

Seriously, it seems that text captions no longer render correctly. I guess that is my conclusion. Yes, I did try other fonts with the same result. Yes, I tested this on multiple computers and multiple browsers.

I hope this makes sense.

Report · Nov 28, 2009

Hello Shawn,

Although I'm not at all a specialist, I think there can be several causes, as well due to the publishing settings and to the settings of the monitors used when viewing the CP-movie. What were the settings of the SWF size and Quality? Since there is always compression when going to the published SWF-format, the settings there are, IMHO, also determining the quality of the fonts. Verdana is a True Type font, did you ever try a ATM-font to see if there is a quality difference? What are the anti-alias settings? Are the monitors using Cleartype to enhance the quality of small fonts on screen display? You mention a font size of 11pt, but 11pt if choosing a total resolution of 640x480 is OK, but if used in 1280x1024 it results in small letters.

This is a really interesting subject, did not find very much about it in this forum. I've a very busy week ahead in college, but would like to explore this subject a little bit more. Could we try some different settings?

Lilybiri

Report · Nov 30, 2009

Hello Lilybiri,

Thanks for your reply.

>I think there can be several causes, as well due to the publishing settings

I have tested this on all publishing settings. There are differences but these are overall quality differences. The 'problem' text is still squished in all circumstances, all different monitors, and computers (with different OS's).

>What were the settings of the SWF size and Quality?

Well, keep in mind that these are global settings. In other words, changes will affect the entire .swf, not just every other slide.

>IMHO, also determining the quality of the fonts. Verdana is a True Type font, did you ever try a ATM-font to see if there is a quality difference?

I am using the same TTF throughout the entire swf. So this doesn't explain why some slides have affected the font, yet others are fine. Unless Adobe installed ATM fonts, I don't think I have any installed.

>What are the anti-alias settings? Are the monitors using Cleartype to enhance the quality of small fonts on screen display?

>You mention a font size of 11pt, but 11pt if choosing a total resolution of 640x480 is OK, but if used in 1280x1024 it results in small letters.

Again, this is a global change. I am having a problem with only some slides not displaying the font correctly. And this is not related to specific slides. It seems stuck with the particular text caption and all new text captions come out as 'squished'

>This is a really interesting subject, did not find very much about it in this forum.

Thanks for your effort. I did not find anything similar to this issue. It is just another problem (of several) that I am trying to deal with.

>I've a very busy week ahead in college, but would like to explore this subject a little bit more. Could we try some different settings?

Good luck... exams?

I am willing to try anything. I will keep you updated.

Thank you.

Report · Nov 30, 2009

Hello Shawn,

No exams (coming in january), preparing a problem-based project, and a lot of meetings ....

Is it possible to share (part of) your project? Just to be able to judge and try several settings (perhaps during boring meetings, I always take my laptop along).

Lilybiri

Report · Nov 30, 2009

Hi Shawn

In addition to what Lilybiri offered, I'll also toss this possibility out.

Note that when you create a Text Caption, you normally create it with a specific font. Should you wish to change that font, you edit the caption, select all the text and apply the new font. I'm wondering if it's possible that with the slides in question, you have made repeated edits? So for example, you changed the font to Verdana, then added more text. In this case, part of the text might be in one font while the added text would be in Verdana?

One thing to try would be to export as a Word document. (File > Export > Project Captions and Closed Captions) See what the fonts look like there. Assuming you see there what you are observing in the Captivate, adjust the fonts and sizes as needed. Then import the Word document back in. At that point, all would hopefully be consistent.

Cheers... Rick

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Report · Nov 30, 2009

Thanks Rick and Lilybiri,

I have discovered where the font goes wrong. I still do not know why but at least I found where.

It appears that the fonts become 'squished' [only] whenever I use the transparent caption type. Using any other text caption type will display a properly rendered font.

Even if starting a new project (from a blank template) the problem exists.

So now the question is why???

Anyone?

Lilybiri, I can still upload a portion of my lesson if necessary.

Rick, I am going to delete that Captivate .dat file and see if that makes a difference.

Report · Nov 30, 2009

>Rick, I am going to delete that Captivate .dat file and see if that makes a difference.

Unfortunately, removing: D:\Users\.........\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Captivate\captivate_v40.dat

...did not help. This problem still exists and I am beginning to believe this is actually a bug because it occurs on two separate computers. One Vista 32, the other a Windows 7 64 bit.

Any thoughts?

Report · Nov 30, 2009

Hi Shawn

Sorry I didn't see this before you went to the trouble of deleting the dat file. I would have speculated this would have had no difference whatsoever.

It's common to see folks report issues with Transparent captions. Normally the report is that the captions are "blurry" or "fuzzy". Usually it's because of anti-aliasing. There are ways past it.

Fellow Adobe Community Expert Paul Dewhurst initially discovered that if you simply highlight one blank character using the color #C0C0C0 the caption would render without anti-aliasing.
Later we discovered that if the caption had a bullet point anywhere in the text, it would render without anti-aliasing. That seems simpler to me than using the highlight. What you do is just add a few blank lines, apply the bullet to the last line, then size the caption so you don't see the bullet. (assuming, of course, that you had no bullets elsewhere. In that case it would be unnecessary to do this)
The Captivate developers added in an option where you may enable/disable anti-aliasing globally. This is done via Edit > Preferences > Project > SWF Size and Quality.

Hopefully something there was helpful... Rick

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Report · Nov 30, 2009

Hello Rick,

This may all be true but if you see my earlier posting where I attached an example, this is not simply a anti-aliasing issue (I did try turning this on/off with no change in this respect). The actual font is a different size (like the font was shrunk - vertically).

Also, as I explained, I found that it is specifically related to which text caption is used, namely the transparent one. This is just really weird and I wonder if it is repeatable on other computers (besides my two).

Report · Nov 30, 2009

Hi Shawn

That's strange. I say that because to my knowledge, the anti-aliasing ONLY applies to transparent captions. All other captions are not anti-aliased.

Out of curiosity, when you tested, did you try each way? With the setting enabled as well as disabled? I do suppose it's possible that a bug exists whereby the global setting could be ignored. If so, it would be the first I've heard of it. (not that I come remotely close to being the "end all" knower of Captivate trivia - LOL)

Cheers... Rick

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Report · Nov 30, 2009

Hello Rick,

I was on my way home and received your message on my phone (my phone is slow) 🙂

Anyhow, I decided to try your idea..... and sure enough, turning off anti-alias from the publish setting does solve the problem! Thank you!!

I still do not know why only some transparent text boxes were problematic but this works!

Incidently, the switch is "Anti-alias transparent captions" but it is not actually anti-aliasing. The effect is horizontally shrinking the fonts... or something similar and the fonts look bad! This must be a bug?

Thanks again Rick!

Report · Dec 01, 2009

Hello Shawn,

I'm so sorry that you didn't see one of my questions in the posting of 28 nov, 'What are the anti-alias settings? ' It is probably due to me, having put too many suggestions in one mail. I never understood really quite well why, but got used to turning off those anti-alias even if I do not use Transparent Captions. One of the mysteries of CP. Perhaps Rick found out why?

I'm happy for you that it is solved.

Lilybiri

Report · Dec 01, 2009

Hello Lilybiri,

>I'm so sorry that you didn't see one of my questions in the posting of

>28 nov, 'What are the anti-alias settings? '

I did see your question and I did (sort of) answer you. When you asked me this question I do remember looking and noting that it was turned on. I didn't think any more about this.

Remember, if you look at the examples I presented in the original message, the problem text is clearly not a result of anti-aliasing. At least, not how most would define anti-aliasing. Every text caption in my lesson is transparent, yet only some text captions were affected. As I mentioned in my reply to you, I did not see how a global setting would affect only a few transparent text captions. I still don't know the answer to that question.

Rick, then recommended that I shut off anti-aliasing... and I figured.. "I willing to try anything no matter how unlikely the suggestion is..." (with respect to Rick ) It turned out that Rick's recommendation was exactly what I needed to do.

Considering how this one little switch affected only some of my transparent text captions, does everyone agree this is a Captivate 4 bug?

Thank you again for your help Lilybiri... I hope there wasn't any misunderstanding.

Report · Dec 01, 2009

Hi Shawn

I'd be willing to bet a whole dollar against a doughnut that if you scrutinize things, the captions that seemingly weren't affected contained a bullet somewhere in the text.

As far as bugs go, I'm not sure I'd classify that one as a bug, as the development team provides a setting that allows you to influence the behavior.

Cheers... Rick

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