Fonts missing after sharing a file, but they aren't really missing

[seanp36]

We have multiple people working on the same the file, across a shared drive. When one person makes changes and saves it, they can open it again just fine. But if another person tries to open the file later, they get the missing fonts message. Even though everyone has all the same OTC fonts on their computers, and  and all they have to do is point it to the right to the right fonts in "Find Fonts." Then, if someone else opens the file again, they have to do it all over. It is wasting our organization a great deal of time.

[Dov Isaacs]

We will assume that instead of OTC (“Over The Counter” as in stock trades) you mean OTF (OpenType Fonts)?!? 

Two possibilities come to mind.

(1)     The document on the shared driver (network share?) was the product of a packaging operation and somehow the Document Fonts subdirectory got corrupted or deleted.

or more likely

(2)     What you think are the same fonts are not exactly the same fonts. InDesign tracks not only the font names, but also version of such fonts. It is possible that there are differences between the fonts of the same name on different systems accessing the InDesign document from their desktop systems.

          - Dov

[seanp36]

You are correct in assuming I made a typo, and wasn't talking about stock trades or pharmaceuticals. 🙂

I don't think it's an issue of a corrupted file, because they're having the same issue with over a dozen InDesign files.

I have taken your suggestion about making sure they all have the exact same version of the font (SourceSans Pro being the culprit). I have copied the font from one machine, overwriting the font on all the other machines. I'll let you know what happens when they all return to work next week.

Thanks for the help.

[Bill Silbert]

One other thing to look for. I'm making the assumption that you are working on macintosh. With that as a given you need to make sure that there are no other versions of the font in one of the native font folders on the computer. For example, if a different copy of the font resides in the users font folder found in the Library of the Home folder it will supersede any fonts of the same name that might reside on the hard drive's Library font folder. Make sure that whether you're using a font utility such as FontExplorer or your fonts are placed in one of the native font folders that it is consistent on all machines.

[rob day]

Then, if someone else opens the file again, they have to do it all over. It is wasting our organization a great deal of time.

Is your organization using any font management software? An application like Font Agent Pro or Suitcase Fusion will let you manage sets of fonts and auto activate closed fonts when you open a doc.

[seanp36]

I'm still having the issue, even after making sure all machines are using the same exact font. We are running Windows 10 on all machines.

We are not using any font managers. I will try that next.

[BobLevine]

Are the fonts installed locally? In a document fonts folder?

Or...are they installed as a shortcut?

[seanp36]

Hi Bob Levine,

The SourceSans Pro OTF font is stored on each individual local machine in the windows fonts folder (although I have also tried placing the font in the InDesign fonts folder in C:\Program Files(X86)/Adobe/InDesign/Fonts).

[seanp36]

I've been playing around with a font manager, but I don't see how it's going to help me. What do you mean by "activate a closed font?" I thought (in Windows) the fonts just sit in the Windows fonts folder and are accessed by whatever program you are using.

[Andy_Baz]

Im intrigued find the correct answer to this as i suffer a similar situation.

My situation is as follows:
-  i work on one iMac and a colleague on another.

- We both have the latest Sierra OS and both have Adobe CC.

- We both use the same fonts, sourced from an old Corel Draw Collection and a Collection called Serials. Using a mixture of postscript Truetype and OpenType.

- We constantly are having to 'Find Missing Fonts' when in fact both iMacs have the exact same font, font type and font version installed.

- We have found that OTF fonts do not give us this issue but PS and TT do.

- We both also use the latest version of Suitcase Fusion (this was bought in the hope that it would remedy this issue) but still have the issue occur.

Any thoughts on this problem would be greatly appreciated.

[BobLevine]

Put them in the Document fonts folder for each InDesign file. And FWIW, you really should start weaning yourself off of anything other than OpenType fonts.

Finally, I'd put all this in a Dropbox folder if you're collaborating to allow you to work on this stuff if you're not in the same room.

[Install on OSX is a pain]

I have the Monserat font family in .ttf and otf. Are you saying to delete the .ttf and use only the .otf fonts for InDesign?

Thanks!

[Bill Silbert]

Open Type fonts are always preferable. They are the only fonts that are truly cross-platform. The only true type fonts that should not be deleted are ones that are used by the operating system.

[BobLevine]

Windows TrueType is also fully crossplatform but those would be some pretty old fonts.

[Bill Silbert]

Windows TrueType can be read by a Mac but I have found significant tracking differences in several fonts.

[Jongware]

Bill, with the exact same font files, between the same InDesign file on Mac and Windows? That'd be a pretty major bug! Can you recall a specific font with which this would happen?

Offhand, I am aware of kerning possibly behaving different between different software, because both TrueType and OpenType font may contain both a 'kern' and a 'GPOS' table. These are not 100% functionally equivalent (OpenType's GPOS allows far more control over a far larger range of characters, including more than 2 and "contextual" kerning and positioning). Some software prefers using the 'kern' table, others always use 'GPOS'. But InDesign and other Adobe software use a shared code base, for its siblings as well as cross-platform. So technically speaking, it should not matter on which platform you open the same file with the same fonts.

Other than kerning, I know a font where you just might be able to spot this: "Times". I really should drop my iPad and check my Mac to be sure, but I think the Mac uses a "real" Times (the ol' Type 1 derivative, based on a 1000/em design) and Windows says it has this font too but silently replaces it with Times New Roman (a TrueType font with a 2048/em design). The difference, then, lies in the implicit rounding that InDesign must do to convert the 1/2048th units into 1/1000th units for the TrueType font. This is noticable in the 2nd and 3rd decimal digits(!!) if you set a line in "Times" and compare it against the Type-1's widths, calculated per its AFM file.

(Yeah that last thing I actually did, and it's how I discovered this. And no, I was not to be bamboozled by kerning, tracking, or different spacing settings. To make sure it wasn't any of these, I read the character widths out of a TNR file and repeated the calculations. Then they were exactly the same as InDesign reported, 3rd, 4rd and more digits than InDesign usually reports -- a simple script can tell you the exact text widths in more significant sigits than a sane person cares.)

[Bill Silbert]

In my agency we found it to be especially true in Microsoft Office apps, most specifically PowerPoint. To the extreme that we decided several years ago that all PowerPoint in the agency would be done on a PC. I don’t remember specific fonts with the most problems but I do remember it being Windows TrueType.

[BobLevine]

Office apps? Seriously? Come on now.

We’re really stretching things here.

[Andy_Baz]

BobLevine,

The old fonts collections i use have a postcript and truetype version of each font do you think it would be beneficial to start using/swapping over to the truetype versions, in the past we have mostly used the postscript versions.

[BobLevine]

Sounds like the old CorelDraw supplied fonts. At this point, yes, I'd use TrueType over Type 1 mainly because they work cross platform.

[Andy_Baz]

i should have mentioned that we both work on the same files and are constantly sharing the files between the iMacs.

My iMac holds all the files and my colleague connects to my iMac over the network to obtain the files and work on them.