Font not showing up in all applications

[Mystii]

Maybe I just don't get it...but I'm having problems with a font. I've read through many of the messages here and don't see this problem discussed.

The font I have difficulty with is one that is available from multiple free sites. It works in Excel, but not in Word. It works in PhotoImpact but not in PaintShop Pro. I have XP and have never had this problem with a font before and it's driving me nuts.

Any suggestions, please, before I lose the rest of my hair??

- Mystii

[Richard Hatch]

What is the name of the font? The only font I've downloaded from the free sites that didn't want to show up was Droid. After discovering FCP, I went back and downloaded it again, but I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

This kind of problem is often caused by the font not having the correct platform mappings. You could also download and run the Font Folder utility from the download area: fifofo.zip

[Mystii]

The problem font is fairydust. I'll give the font utility a try and see what it does.

Thanks.

[Erwin Denissen]

To fix your font install problem, you should try to use the AutoNaming feature. This ensures correct naming values.

[hegedusgy]

Hi,
I found the same error, again with XP as operating system. I have modified an existing font (added some glyphs to it), installed it without any error.
right now the font seems to be correct (eg. when doube clicking onto it in the fonts folder), the new glyphs can be typed in and seen properly in excel and in most of the other applications (eg. ulead video studio) and fifofo does not report any error either.
However neither ms word nor wordpad does not show my new font (it is the font list, but substituted with some default font.)
microsoft knowledge base said it might be some printer driver issue as ms word and wordpad performs some printer check, while ms excel does not, but my printer driver seems to be ok (hp laserjet).
would be grateful for some explanation.
regards

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Have you checked the Unicode ranges for the characters you added to the font?

Format, Settings, Ranges, Unicode Character Ranges, Edit and check the character set you have added characters in: e.g. Latin Extended Additional.

[hegedusgy]

yes. originally i started to work with a simple basic font (ie numbers and english letters). originally there were no range settings at all as far as i remember. this original font worked properly in all applications including word.
I added to it some special hungarian letters, mapped them appropriately to my keyboard and set up the correct ranges as well as you mentioned (to extended latin A), I even set up the country details.
everything seems ok, it seems to me that ALL of my applications except word and wordpad works fine with these extended fonts. if i press my special keyboard buttons, my new letters appears, but not in word, where it is substituted. i tried auto renaming the fonts, with no change.
regards,

[fantong]

I've downloaded the FairyDust.ttf and checked it. Mystii's font problem results from a missing field in the naming field. FairyDust.ttf doesn't have anything in "Unique font Identifier" field. After correcting this, FairyDust seems to have no problem at all.

But I think "hegedusgy''s problem has something different from Mystii's. What font is it, hegedusgy?

[hegedusgy]

thanks the hint. i solved it.

the reason (i guess): word expects given postcript names, while excel does not care about them.

i gave my special hungarian fonts some fancy names, so word refused to accept my whole font set. for example: my original postscript name for eg the letter 'a' with acute ('á') was originally something like 'mya'. after i renamed it to 'aacute' (as they were named in a working font set), and after i did it for all of my new characters, it worked finally even in word.
thanks

[fantong]

Yes, as hegedusgy mentioned above, "Postscript name" in the naming field must observe the following standard.

"This field should be restricted to the printable ASCII subset, codes 33 through 126, except for the 10 characters: '[', ']', '(', ')', '{', '}', '<', '>', '/', '%'. So it should not contain any spaces. This field should be no longer than 63 characters"

This is described in the help file.

[Erwin Denissen]

Although fantong is right about the postscript naming field, I think hegedusgy is talking about the postscript names related to the glyphs.

Adobe recommends a maximum string length of 31 for each glyph related postscript name. Just like the postscript naming field, the post script name should be restricted to the printable ASCII subset, codes 33 through 126, except for the 10 characters: '[', ']', '(', ')', '{', '}', '<', '>', '/', '%'. So it should not contain any spaces.

For more information about glyph related postscript name conventions:
Unicode and Glyph Names
Adobe Glyph List