FrameMaker 12 and 2015 FAIL on systems with significant numbers of fonts.... THERE IS NO FIX IN SIGHT! AVOID THIS BUGGY PRODUCT!

Report · Dec 12, 2015

FrameMaker 12 and 2015 fail on systems with significant numbers of fonts...with NO FIX IN SIGHT! AVOID THIS BUGGY PRODUCT! I have waited for several months now for Adobe to work on resolving this CONFIRMED issue, and to date all I get are reassurances that Adobe will eventually work on the issue, but so far, NOTHING! I have a system with hundreds of fonts on it, which I need, and because of that FrameMaker's font selection menus FAIL to work.

The basic issues are these: I have many fonts installed on my system. And, I find that I cannot select fonts successfully in FrameMaker 12 as a result. First, the Format -> Font screen cuts off my fonts by not displaying all of them due to my having too many installed on my system, apparently, making this dialog useless for selecting my fonts. Second, in the Text Formatting toolbar, I can select the font I want in the dropdown, BUT as soon as I select a font that is far down in my fonts list alphabetically, my selection is overridden by some other font that is higher up in the dialog which I did NOT select, effectively making the font selector dropdown in the Text Formatting toolbar equally useless.

Here is a copy of my correspondence with Adobe to date on this issue, where I have only been repeatedly put-off and given useless "reassurances" with ZERO actual remedy:

Hi Ajit,

The Paragraph/Char designer is not a usable solution for a book that has many fonts and is complex, and that is the case with everything I write. It is so cumbersome as to be completely unworkable, in other words....

I need to have a fix for this, as the product is completely useless to me without it. I cannot continue to wait indefinitely for a fix that may never come. You folks have had months to work on this, and unless it's resolved in the near future, I will go public concerning this major FrameMaker 12 (and later) limitation.... Also, I will request a full refund for TCS 5 since I primarily purchased the product for FrameMaker 12, and if I cannot use the latter, I have no use for the rest either....

Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

From: tcsgold@adobe.com

To: ME

CC: tcsgold@adobe.com; mhoffman@adobe.com

Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2015 23:14:22 +0000

Hi Tim,

Hope you are doing well…!

We are still working with the product team on this issue, but I cannot assure you about the timeframe for a fix at this moment. In the meanwhile I would request you to use Paragraph/Char designer to apply fonts as a workaround and whenever we have any solution to this problem then I will surely update you.

Appreciate your patience.

Regards,

Ajit

From: Tim Huckabay [mailto:ME]
Sent: 28 October 2015 06:48
To: TCS Gold Support; Maxwell Hoffmann
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com
Importance: High

Hi Ajit,

What is the status on fixing these font issues in FrameMaker 12. I STILL cannot use the product, and considering it cost me several hundred dollars, that is just unacceptable....

Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

Maxwell, can you offer me a free upgrade to the next version of TCS Suite that includes a WORKING version of FrameMaker where these font issues I cannot get past are concerned?

From: tcsgold@adobe.com
To: ME
CC: tcsgold@adobe.com
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2015 17:56:07 +0000

Hi Tim,

I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you. We are extensively working with the product team to find a solution to the problem that you were facing but I cannot assure you about the timeframe for a fix at this moment. We are keeping this issue on priority and update you once there will be a fix for the same.

Regards,

Ajit

From: Tim Huckabay [mailto:ME]
Sent: 06 October 2015 23:05
To: TCS Gold Support
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com

Hi Ajit,

What is the status on fixing these font issues in FrameMaker 12. I STILL cannot use the product, and considering it cost me several hundred dollars, that is just unacceptable....

Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

From: tcsgold@adobe.com
To: ME
CC: tcsgold@adobe.com; mhoffman@adobe.com
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 00:23:40 +0000

Hi Tim,

I am sorry for the delay in the update, we are still working on bug# 4052709 and will try to provide you a fix in future. I cannot assure you about the timeframe for a fix at this moment but please rest assured that this issue has already escalated to the product team. We are keeping this issue on priority and update you once there will be a fix for the same.

Let me know if any further assistance required from my side.

Regards,

Ajit

From: Tim Huckabay [mailto:ME]
Sent: 17 September 2015 19:31
To: TCS Gold Support; Maxwell Hoffmann
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com

Hi Max,

I don't see any progress on these bugs to date, and FrameMaker 12 is unusable without fixes to these for me. Can you please do something to escalate this for me? And, if a fix is not going to be forthcoming in FrameMaker 12, could you then find a way to get whatever "next" version of FrameMaker that would have a fix for me AT NO CHARGE? (Otherwise, I have invested several hundred dollars and lots of time in a product that I will not be able to use at all for my books, and that would just be unacceptable.) Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

From: ME To: tcsgold@adobe.com
CC: mhoffman@adobe.com
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2015 18:26:18 -0600

Hi Ajit,

I'm glad these are now known bugs. That said, I must tell you that I am a professional writer, and using the workarounds suggested is a non-starter, as they are much too slow and cumbersome to employ for anyone who does anything other than minimal writing. Please put some urgency behind getting these bugs resolved / patched. I do think you may need to consider revamping the menu and dialog involved due to the bug and for performance reasons.

Please continue to keep me abreast of the progress, as this is really important to me if I am to use FrameMaker going forward (which I would really like to do).

Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

From: tcsgold@adobe.com
To: ME
CC: tcsgold@adobe.com
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2015 23:48:14 +0000

Hi Tim,

Greetings!

I would like to inform you that the font issue you have reported to us has been identified as a bug with FM 12 and FM 2015. I cannot give any time frame for a fix regarding the same at this time.

In the meanwhile I would request you to use Paragraph/Char designer to apply fonts as a workaround, to ease searching fonts in these pods we have provided filtering in these font dropdowns. In the font family just type the initial of font( say P,Q) and you will only see filtered fonts there.

Let me know if you need any further assistance.

Regards,

Ajit

From: Tim Huckabay [mailto:ME]
Sent: 05 September 2015 02:23
To: TCS Gold Support
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com

Hi Ajit,

What is the status on this? Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

From: tcsgold@adobe.com
To: ME
CC: tcsgold@adobe.com
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2015 00:25:42 +0000

Hi Tim,

Thank you for your response.

I have tested the font issue at my end and able to reproduce it. I have forwarded this issue to the Product Team and they are looking into it. I will get back to you with some suggestions and possible cause of the issue ASAP.

Here is a link to the Feature Request Form to request new features or suggest modifications to existing features –

http://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html

Regards,

Ajit

From: Tim Huckabay [mailto:ME]
Sent: 29 August 2015 04:40
To: TCS Gold Support
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com

Hi Ajit,

Please do keep me abreast of the progress on resolving these issues.

Also, I had sent the below message to Mayank, and if you or he could get back to me on that as well, I'd appreciate it greatly:

I will send you a separate email concerning our discussion last night on my key feature request: to have automatic continuation of footnotes in FrameMaker 12 and later documents. To that end, please send the feature request form that you mentioned, and let me know if I need to send that completed document to you and/or others, etc.

Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

From: tcsgold@adobe.com
To: ME
CC: tcsgold@adobe.com
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2015 00:34:48 +0000

Hi Tim,

I am replying on behalf of Mayank.

Currently I am testing the issue with Fonts that you were facing at my end on a Virtual Machine, will update you soon.

Regards,

Ajit

From: TCS Gold Support
Sent: 27 August 2015 00:29
To: Tim Huckabay; TCS Gold Support
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com

Hi Tim,

Yes I can see the fonts folder on FTP. I will download it and let you know the progress on the issue.

Regards,

Mayank

From: Tim Huckabay [mailto:ME]
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 11:08 PM
To: TCS Gold Support <tcsgold@adobe.com>
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12 - Fonts.zip uploaded to "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in sjftp.adobe.com

Hi Mayank,

OK, I used an older FTP client (FileZilla did not work for me either), and created a "TimHuckabay" folder under PPBU in ftp://sjftp.adobe.com/ , and have successfully uploaded a Fonts.zip file (467,926 KB, or 479155282 bytes, in size) to that new "TImHuckabay" folder. Hopefully you have access to that. Please let me know. Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

From: tcsgold@adobe.com
To: ME; tcsgold@adobe.com
Subject: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 13:56:46 +0000

Hi Tim,

Please find below the details for the FTP to upload the files :

UPLOAD

Please follow these steps to upload the files-

1. Open Window Explorer and in the Address bar paste this address ? ftp://sjftp.adobe.com/techsupp/custupload/

2. To Log on – Use the credentials ?Log-in ID : cust-ul ||Password: $Ytbv92345

3. Locate the Folder PPBU/ and create a new folder inside the PPBU folder by your name . Copy and paste your Fonts folder here.

Regards,

Mayank

From: Tim Huckabay [mailto:ME]
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 7:13 PM
To: TCS Gold Support
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12

Hi Mayank,

Can you provide an FTP share to which I may upload the fonts? Providing my whole set of installed fonts for testing would require an archive of many megabytes, and that could not be emailed. Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

From: tcsgold@adobe.com
To: tcsgold@adobe.com; ME CC: mhoffman@adobe.com
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 11:43:20 +0000

Hi Tim,

Is it possible for you to share your fonts folder with us to test . It definitely seems to be an issue with the large number of fonts but we only have few fonts available at our end. Adding 2000 + fonts may take some time to test on our side. If you can share some fonts that our we can test it quickly. We will delete the fonts once our testing is done.

If you can share that zip the fonts folder and send it to us via dropbox.

Regards,

Mayank

From: TCS Gold Support
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 4:49 AM
To: TCS Gold Support; Tim Huckabay
Cc: Maxwell Hoffmann
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12

Hi Tim,

Please click on the below link to share the screen:

https://screen.share.adobe.com/?ak=aa35f3a53e07e4c74f07300a30b12459

Regards,

Mayank

From: TCS Gold Support
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2015 5:36 AM
To: Tim Huckabay; TCS Gold Support
Cc: Maxwell Hoffmann
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12

Hi Tim,

Thank you for the reply.

I am currently on call and will be leaving in few minutes. I will surely call you tomorrow at the same time at the numbers mentioned below and will look into the issue.

Regards,

Mayank

From: Tim Huckabay [mailto:ME]
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2015 5:25 AM
To: TCS Gold Support
Cc: Maxwell Hoffmann
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12
Importance: High

Hi Mayank,

I was driving on the road when you called. I am now available, however, if this is a time that works for you. (I will have many interruptions tomorrow and Wednesday afternoon, so do please keep trying until you reach me.)

I can be reached on a land line at ;, I would try my land line for better voice clarity.

If you cannot call me back right now, then you could try to reach me about this same time tomorrow, earlier on Wednesday, or most of the day on Thursday or Friday.

Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

From: tcsgold@adobe.com
To: ME CC: tcsgold@adobe.com
Subject: FW: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2015 23:51:25 +0000

Hi Tim,

I tried calling you but reached voicemail. Please let me know the suitable time to call you and look into the below font issue you are facing.

Regards,

Mayank

From: Tim Huckabay [mailto:ME]
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2015 11:35 AM
To: Maxwell Hoffmann <mhoffman@adobe.com>
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12

Hi Max,

Thank you for your kind and quick response. I wrote my email very late (early in the morning) while I was very tired, so please accept my apologies for my pushiness. I do, however, greatly appreciate your response, and hope your hand heals well and quickly!

I will be very happy to share my screen with whomever contacts me on this. (I have not yet heard from anyone.) Just so you know, I have some doctors appointments and interviews occurring myself today and tomorrow, so I hope to not miss the attempt to contact me whenever that comes. (Please ask whomever it is to make more than one attempt, and if they fail to reach me today or tomorrow, to try again on the other days later this week, as I am truly anxious to make progress on these issues.)

Also, I have not yet tried the workaround that you suggest below, but will do so later today and let you know how that works out. In the meantime, I would LOVE to see this issue fixed, as I have pinned high hopes on FrameMaker 12 for my writing.

Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

From: mhoffman@adobe.com
To: ME
CC: barb@rockymountaintraining.com
Subject: RE: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2015 11:25:45 +0000

Hello Tim,

I am sorry for the stress that you are going through with you implementation of FrameMaker. Adobe does take customer request seriously; FrameMaker is a very powerful tool and can be used many, many different ways.

A live screen share of your desktop demonstrating exactly what you are experiencing will probably be required.

Since I have recently returned from a surgical/medical leave, and my hand is in a cast for a few more weeks, I will forward your message to internal team members who can reach out to you directly. You will be contacted by a team member from NOIDA, INDIA today or tomorrow. Please “cc” me on your subsequent messages so I can monitor that you achieve a resolution.

p.s. I can think of one workaround that might prove useful. I assume you are doing font overrides on a character/word level:

? Select text where you wish to change the font

? Press Ctrl+d to open up Character Designer

? In Family field, start to type the first few characters of the font name …

? In the example screen capture above, I have typed Luc for Lucida …

? You may then select an adjacent font name with mouse, or type out the entire name if you wish.

? You can tear away the Character Designer, and let it “float” … If you double click on the top, gray bar indicated below, the menu will collapse to a bar and cover very little of your document:

?

I hope this helps.

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From: Tim Huckabay [mailto:ME]
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2015 12:09 AM
To: Maxwell Hoffmann <mhoffman@adobe.com>
Cc: barb@rockymountaintraining.com
Subject: Problems with fonts in FrameMaker 12
Importance: High

Hi Max,

I have many fonts installed on my system. And, I find that I cannot select fonts successfully in FrameMaker 12 as a result. First, the Format -> Font screen cuts off my fonts by not displaying all of them due to my having too many installed on my system, apparently, making this dialog useless for selecting my fonts. Second, in the Text Formatting toolbar, I can select the font I want in the dropdown, BUT as soon as I select a font that is far down in my fonts list alphabetically, my selection is overridden by some other font that is higher up in the dialog which I did NOT select, effectively making the font selector dropdown in the Text Formatting toolbar equally useless.

Seriously? Is this the sort of quality that Adobe puts out with a product like FrameMaker 12? (I have the latest update.) I was really hoping to use this for my books, but now the product seems like buggy, unreliable junk.

Please help.... By the way, unless there is a quick, acceptable resolution and fix to this, I will make this issue known across the internet and recommend that serious writers everywhere avoid FrameMaker, as Adobe clearly does NOT have its act together with this product....

Please help!

Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

From: mhoffman@adobe.com
To: ME CC: barb@rockymountaintraining.com
Subject: RE: Questions regarding footnotes in FrameMaker 12 (and later)
Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 06:23:48 +0000

Hello Tim,

I have forwarded your comments to product management. I do know that this functionality will not be in the next release of software. I was unable to obtain an internal response as to whether this is on our roadmap for future product development or not.

If you haven’t done so already, please log your request on the following “Feature Request/Bug Report Form” – this is logged into a database, and the more requests there are for a certain feature, the sooner it gets added to the development road map:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

Thank you for taking so much time explaining your needs. I wish that I had an answer that would make you happier.

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From: Tim Huckabay [mailto:ME]
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2015 10:54 PM
To: Maxwell Hoffmann
Cc: barb@rockymountaintraining.com
Subject: RE: Questions regarding footnotes in FrameMaker 12 (and later)
Importance: High

Hi Max,

I sure would appreciate a response to the below comments and questions. Thanks for your valuable time,

Tim Huckabay

From: ME To: mhoffman@adobe.com
CC: barb@rockymountaintraining.com
Subject: RE: Questions regarding footnotes in FrameMaker 12 (and later)
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 19:22:39 -0600

Hi Max,

I'm wondering what if any progress has been made on this request to enable automatic continuation of footnotes across pages in FrameMaker? I am getting closer to completing nearly ten books that are heavily academic and very heavy on footnotes, and I had hoped to use FrameMaker 12 (or a later version) for those.... (I do have FrameMaker 12 already.) Will I have to go with a different product, such as Nota Bene 10 or the like? I hope not.

I hope that you and Adobe are listening to customers like me on this, as by the way, it is a failure to listen and respond to customers that led to QuarkXPress' downfall. Will Adobe repeat Quark's errors by becoming too comfortable in its own britches? (See http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/quarkxpress-the-demise-of-a-design-desk-darli... .)

I realize that you told me that business users don't have much need for automatic continuation of footnotes, but you must realize that such a response from you, or anyone at Adobe for that matter, simply reeks of hubris and frankly, shows that you and Adobe are not given proper attention to a serious market segment: academic writing or heavily documented writing. (My books literally have THOUSANDS of footnotes, many of them detailed and essentially mini-articles in their own right.)

Please consider what I am saying, and let me know if Adobe will address this serious shortcoming of FrameMaker.

Thanks,

Tim Huckabay

[SNIP]

Report · Dec 12, 2015

If you ever use the Format > Fonts menu option or the Text toolbar to apply a font to content, then you are just not using the product properly and are creating formatting overrides [this type of behaviour is more akin to what many Word users do]. You should be using paragraph or character tags to apply a font to your content. Using the designers, there is never an issue with too many fonts. In the latest version (FM2015), the ability to type-ahead and match in the font list make selecting a font super easy.

I too have hundreds of fonts on my systems and have been using FM for a couple of decades without any problems. There has never been a need to use the Fonts menu nor the Text toolbar to properly format content.

Report · Dec 13, 2015

Hi Arnis,

You are mistaken. If you actually had a comparable number of fonts installed to me, then you would absolutely encounter the same issues in both FrameMaker 12 and FrameMaker 2015. Bear in mind, these are CONFIRMED bugs in FrameMaker 12 and FrameMaker 2015 by Adobe. Also, it is not advisable to create separate paragraph or character tags every time one wants to make a font change that is not frequently used with the rest of the style, and it is also impractical when there are many individual and unique font changes in a document that are "one-offs." So far as any ability to "type-ahead and match in the font list," that is exactly what one CANNOT do successfully when too many fonts are installed, and since you are not experiencing that bug, you do not have enough fonts installed to encounter it. My points stand, and these issues are unresolved.

Report · Dec 13, 2015

Is around 1100 comparable?

There may be an issue/bug or whatever in the specific View > Font menu display (which should have been deprecated long ago), but I still stand by assertion that simply applying a font change directly is creating an unnnecessary override.

If you need a font change, then it serves a purpose and conveys a specific message to the reader. That purpose can be named. Hence, you should create and apply a tag.

If it (the font change) is only used once in a documentation set, then I would seriously question its purpose. If you have so many of these one-off font changes, then all I can envisage is something that looks like a ransom note.

A properly designed template with all the styles required makes the writer's job much easier. How many different fonts do you actually use in a document and how many styles do you need to cover all of your usage scenarios? Yes, it might be a bit of a pain to set up that first template properly, but once it's done, you can keep re-using it and making minor modifications as your requirements evolve.

Adobe Community

FrameMaker 12 and 2015 FAIL on systems with significant numbers of fonts.... THERE IS NO FIX IN SIGHT! AVOID THIS BUGGY PRODUCT!