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[531] Crash with Font Manager, "Missing" Font


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Opened "Clean Water 2017 - Fresh Water.idml" (you have this file and links) and when running the Preflight, this time it said there were missing fonts. I don't recall the font being missing (Futura Bold) in the last beta when imported/opened, but don't know that for sure.

1) Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not seeing a function in the Font Manager to "Replace all occurrences with this font" in order to find and replace all errors without having to go throughout the doc 1 by 1. Maybe there is another way I've missed such as the Search?? Be nice to be able to do this within Font Manager since it is a somewhat common thing opening older docs, etc.

2) I then did a Locate on the "missing" font (Futura Bold) and manually changed the font to the same one but one that worked (not sure what happened, same font and style). I then went back into the Font Manager (having left the window open) and did a Locate again, but this time I got an immediate crash (report attached).

3) Also got an odd Warning in the Font Manager about "Unsupported Characters use". Can't see anything in that text block that is obvious. I also selected all and reapplied the font and style (Times Italic) and still get the error message. I don't see any odd characters. For your reference and testing, these spare text blocks are on the pasteboard to the right of pages 1 and 2. 

Affinity Publisher Beta_2020-01-15-151505_TRAC-Main17.crash

Screen Shot 2020-01-15 at 3.28.33 PM.png

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iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020 i7 72GB) • AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 GB • macOS Ventura
MacBook Pro, 13", M1 2020 • 16 GB • macOS Ventura
iPad Air 2022

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On item 3, I copied the text from the imported IDML and pasted it into TextEdit. It seems that somewhere in the process several small "spaces" were added within words. Those "spaces" may be the "unsupported characters" in the error message, but not sure how they got there. Possible misinterpreting of ID hyphenation?

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iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020 i7 72GB) • AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 GB • macOS Ventura
MacBook Pro, 13", M1 2020 • 16 GB • macOS Ventura
iPad Air 2022

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • Staff

Hi nwhit,

Thanks for letting us know. Unfortunately there isn't yet a way to completely replace a font as opposed to just substituting it. You should be able to find by selecting the missing font using Find and Replace (after selecting the missing category for the Font Family). However it is failing to find the text if the font isn't present rendering it useless! I've passed this on to development to be fixed however.

Regarding the crash, I was unable to reproduce that - is that a one off for you, or can you reproduce it? If it is reproducible are you able to record a video showing the process you're going through please?

Lastly, as you've correctly guessed there is some zero width non-breaking spaces inside your document. These are present inside the original IDML file, so they are being imported correctly. However unlike InDesign and MS Word enabling 'Show Special Characters' doesn't display these making them almost impossible to find. I've passed on to development however that Show Special Characters should display something to note they're there.

 

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Just tried opening that IDML file in beta 535 and it did not crash when using the Locate button in the Font Manager.

On replacing missing fonts, I am at a loss on how to do that. In the panel for Find and Replace, I don't see any options for specifying finding a specific font family and style, or replacing fonts with another. With ID, there is the Find Font function that can find fonts throughout the document and permanently replace with another. With the upcoming IDML import, or even with PDF import, it will be a critical function to be able to find and replace all instances of "missing" or undesirable fonts. Without an equivalent Find Font functionality, I'm not seeing any practical way to do this in a somewhat complex text frame document with multiple fonts and locations on multiple pages, etc. Hopefully that will be something that will be available in the final 1.8.

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iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020 i7 72GB) • AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 GB • macOS Ventura
MacBook Pro, 13", M1 2020 • 16 GB • macOS Ventura
iPad Air 2022

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21 minutes ago, nwhit said:

In the panel for Find and Replace, I don't see any options for specifying finding a specific font family and style, or replacing fonts with another.

You can search by format for many different attributes, including font family. You can do the same thing with replace. Click the gear to the far right of the word "Find," and then choose the first option "Format" to get a wealth of options.

561316866_ScreenShot2020-01-24at3_10_50PM.png.ad76138c011229f9ad0816beca808562.png

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Aha! I thought I remember hearing about it, but when I looked, I didn't try the "Format" selection. Might be an idea for the interface/gui to show that selection with an ellipsis (...) to indicate there is a dialog with options.

Then apparently for it to work with missing fonts, needs the fix Sean mentioned. I guess I had hoped that the Font Manager would provide that functionality like in ID. Missing fonts apparently will be an issue with both IDML and PDF importing of previous docs, so an easy method to permanently replace them is critically needed, especially when they are showing as missing (including those that are really there, but IDML and/or APub is not seeing as the same font). 

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iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020 i7 72GB) • AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 GB • macOS Ventura
MacBook Pro, 13", M1 2020 • 16 GB • macOS Ventura
iPad Air 2022

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • Staff

We have made fixes/improvements to this area (Show Special Characters should display a symbol for Zero Width NBSP) of the program in the latest customer beta. If you would like to try these changes the beta software is available in the forum posts listed below.

The latest beta builds are downloadable from links at the top of each of these beta forum posts.

These betas install parallel, next to the release version (they do not overwrite your release) and so the fixes can be tried in the beta without affecting your normal workflow in the release version.

Once these programs have been through a full beta process the change will be released in a future free 1.8.0 update/patch to all customers.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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