MadCap and Open Type (OTF fonts) -Who cares about this flaw?

[sdcinvan]

Hello all,

Many of you may have seen my recent rants:
Installed font not showing up in Font Family Picker
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... =13&t=7499
Adding a new font family to Flare 9.x huh?
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 13&t=18035
Newly-installed font not appearing in Font Family Picker
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... =6&t=11722

...about this long (over 5 years) occurring failure of MadCap product's inability to use the ISO/Windows standard OTF font.

Why is this important?
- Because OTF is a vast improvement over the old TTF standard.
- Most or all commercial fonts default to OTF.
- Print publication text may often look better with an OTF font.
- Microsoft, Adobe ratified and embraced this font specification about 11 years ago. All Adobe products have exclusively used OTF fonts going back almost that long ago.
- It is nearly impossible to find another (relevant) Windows product that is incompatible with OTF. MadCap products stand alone and this isn't a compliment!

What it is not used for...
- Web only output.
I suppose if you only use Flare to produce Web content, OTF is not relevant. Wrong (well unless you really don't care)... Support for Open Type (OTF), Embedded Open Type (EOT), and Web Open Font format (WOFF) are all becoming increasingly supported.

Anyhow, I am arguing with MadCap that this is an important bug (not a feature request) that must be addressed soon.
A MadCap CS agenda has filed a bug report number 83249 about this issue BUT it may be rejected as a bug and thrown back to a feature request that may continue to be ignored for many more years.

Who is with me? Please post a comment here with your agreement or argument for/against.

Thank you,
Shawn

[NorthEast]

I'd like better all-round font support.
I don't actually use OTF, but use the other formats for help/web output (EOT, WOFF, TTF, SVG - using font-face).

It's one of a number of CSS-related issues that I'd like proper support for in Flare, e.g.:
- ability to apply multiple classes to an element
- handling @media queries without errors (e.g. for responsive elements)

[ChoccieMuffin]

If anyone else agrees, use the link in my signature to post a bug report.

Merry Christmas!

[sdcinvan]

If anyone else agrees, use the link in my signature to post a bug report.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you and yours too!

Holiday cheer aside, I'm going to make it my mission to bug MadCap until this is fixed. I'm going to be their biggest PITN ever over this issue.

BTW, I have a decision to make... do I uninstall Flare and reinstall it in a special VM Windows environment, loaded with TTF fonts OR do I uninstall the TTF fonts and re-install the OTF fonts whenever I need to work in the Adobe Suite? Then re-load the TTF fonts when I need to work in Flare again. All I know is that I cannot have the same TTF and OTF fonts installed simultaneously... Thanks for nothing MadCap. grrr.

If you are wondering why I don't just use the TTF fonts, I can't because our graphics designer is only using the OTF fonts... so when I receive Adobe source, it is looking for the OTF versions of the same fonts. I hope you understand my dilemma and why I am so darn annoyed with MadCap right now.

[RamonS]

Do you have VMWare Workstation? With Unity enabled you can run one app in the VM but it looks as if it is running on the host. With shared clipboard and drag & drop it comes very close to being the real thing.

[sdcinvan]

Do you have VMWare Workstation? With Unity enabled you can run one app in the VM but it looks as if it is running on the host. With shared clipboard and drag & drop it comes very close to being the real thing.

Thank you for the suggestion.

That is exactly what I am considering... Unity works quite well in v9 and up. Fortunately, I have v9 installed.

But keep in mind, this is a very costly annoyance in terms of needing an additional Windows license, memory, and CPU cycles. I think it might be best to put Flare into the VM because I think it may have a smaller foot print in terms of CPU and memory usage... compared to the Adobe Suite. But, on the other hand, I use Flare about 70% of the time. Decisions, decisions... I should not have to make.

[sdcinvan]

Should I be surprised at the lack of interest in OTF support in Flare?

Do most of you only produce web output?

[whunter]

I produce PDF as well as web output, but we don't formally print the PDFs (they're for electronic consumption or casual printing). Also my company is not particular about the fonts.

[sdcinvan]

I produce PDF as well as web output, but we don't formally print the PDFs (they're for electronic consumption or casual printing). Also my company is not particular about the fonts.

Hmm... The MadCap 'world' is seems so different than the Adobe 'world' when I was working with FrameMaker. If OTF wasn't available in Frame, at least, 80% of the content creators would have screamed bloody murder.

[Msquared]

Coincidentally, my company did a rebranding exercise recently, and, like your company, selected an OTF for the company branding. I discovered about Flare's lack of support for OTF a couple of days before you did.

However, I had a large number of number of Word documents to rebrand as well as the Flare ones. To redo the front pages, headers, footers, fonts, colours etc took me about an hour in Flare for all the documents I'd ported to Flare so far, and took me an hour each for the Word documents (and I did the minimum change I could get away with, since one day these will be in Flare too).

So Flare actually won hands down over Word for me, and I was left with a minor niggle, not a major rant. Also, I work for a small company, and have a lot more leeway over my document styles and less corporate policy to implement. Until I joined, there was no such thing as a corporate template for technical documents, so I set one up, and passed it round to anyone who asked for it. All my product documentation uses it, and slowly, more and more people are coming to me and asking where they can find my template for their documents, having seen what their colleagues have produced. I can't insist that the rest of the company uses it, but equally, they don't insist that I follow any policy either.

I will be adding my voice to your campaign though. I think MadCap support may be frightened of me

[RamonS]

I no longer craft a lot of docs using Flare, but if I was asked to use a very specific font because marketing insists that this is the one to use and I do not get it as TTF I'd pick one that comes close. I don't want to diss design choices by the various marketing departments in general, but when it comes to online help for an application the customers care not at all what the font is as long as it is easy to read. I doubt that anyone in any company can make a case that there is loss of revenue when the font in the help files is not exactly the same as the one on the letter heads or the glossy cut sheets.
Should Flare support the various versions of OTF? Yes! But until it does focus on things that really matter such as content and availability. That is way more important than 'pretty'.

[sdcinvan]

Coincidentally, my company did a rebranding exercise recently, and, like your company, selected an OTF for the company branding. I discovered about Flare's lack of support for OTF a couple of days before you did.

However, I had a large number of number of Word documents to rebrand as well as the Flare ones. To redo the front pages, headers, footers, fonts, colours etc took me about an hour in Flare for all the documents I'd ported to Flare so far, and took me an hour each for the Word documents (and I did the minimum change I could get away with, since one day these will be in Flare too).

So Flare actually won hands down over Word for me, and I was left with a minor niggle, not a major rant. Also, I work for a small company, and have a lot more leeway over my document styles and less corporate policy to implement. Until I joined, there was no such thing as a corporate template for technical documents, so I set one up, and passed it round to anyone who asked for it. All my product documentation uses it, and slowly, more and more people are coming to me and asking where they can find my template for their documents, having seen what their colleagues have produced. I can't insist that the rest of the company uses it, but equally, they don't insist that I follow any policy either.

I will be adding my voice to your campaign though. I think MadCap support may be frightened of me

Hello Marjorie,

You didn't explain how you solved the OTF problem in Flare. But thanks for joining the fight.

For me, it is (was) a double whammy because even though I could solve the problem with the half-measure solution of converting the OTF fonts to TTF (1/2 measure because quality is lost in the conversion), I STILL need the OTF fonts installed to maintain Adobe Suite compatibility with our designers.

Originally, I was going to install Flare in VMware but that would add a bunch of potential complications (memory, CPU, cost of Windows license, etc.)

But... since I am already using a MadBuild server, I opted for installing the TTF fonts on the MadBuild Server and the OTF fonts on my desktop. Adobe is happy, Flare just uses a secondary font. The only caveat is that I can't see a perfect preview or test publish on my desktop.

[meridithatOrg]

Hi everyone.

I registered an account because of this message.

I am the team lead for my company's docs department and one of my jobs is to assess the feasibility of moving much of our documentation to MadCap Flare. We do a lot of rich documentation, use custom fonts designed in Open Type Format, and we build a lot of content with other tools that need OTF fonts. If it is true, that Flare is incompatible with OTF fonts... my transition project is dead in the water.

Please tell me I have misunderstood this thread.

Thanks you,
Meridith

[Msquared]

Unfortunately, you are correct. Your only option as things stand is to convert your OTF fonts to True Type.

If you are not yet in contact with MadCap's sales department regarding your evaluation, then I would suggest that you contact them and discuss this problem. I have no idea how big a task it is to add OTF support to Flare, nor how far in the future such support is. The issue is that .NET doesn't support OTF, so the MadCap developers would need to code round that.

It may be that if a big sale hinges on it, MadCap could offer to add the feature promptly, but I can't speak for MadCap, of course. I know they made a minor modification to their licensing model to meet my requirements, and they are generally very responsive to user comments and concerns.

If you have other questions, feel free to ask away here!

[ArmandFrvr]

I'm going to make it my mission to bug MadCap until this is fixed. I'm going to be their biggest PITN ever over this issue.

Mind if I join you?

This isn't an issue for me anymore as I found someone else (using this forum!) who had converted the Myriad Pro font family. So all I did was uninstall the OTF version and reinstall his converted version of the font. But still... what a hassle! This ought to have been supported ages ago and I was honestly shocked that it wasn't.

[Msquared]

Hi Armand. Glad to have you on board!

[leneis]

Oh dear god, I'm so depressed to find this thread.

I am the only writer in a small company... Flare seemed to fit the bill, so I convinced management to go for it. Now I find that it won't support the company brand font because it's an OTF font?

On the topic of three-letter acronyms, OMG WTF.

Here I thought we were buying a PUBLISHING PACKAGE. Apparently it's a css package that can export some stuff to Acrobat.

Very very disappointed, and dreading this conversation with the higher-ups. Let me know if anything changes! I submitted a bug report, but I know that's as useful as a chocolate teapot...

-Mary

[NorthEast]

Couldn't you just use the same font in a different file format though?

- If you paid for the font, I'd imagine the font supplier will be able to provide you with other formats.
- If it's a free font, there are a lot of free online font converters.

Also, if you're producing web-based outputs, you'd need the font in additional formats for full browser support.

[sdcinvan]

Oh dear god, I'm so depressed to find this thread.

I am the only writer in a small company... Flare seemed to fit the bill, so I convinced management to go for it. Now I find that it won't support the company brand font because it's an OTF font?
On the topic of three-letter acronyms, OMG WTF.
Here I thought we were buying a PUBLISHING PACKAGE. Apparently it's a css package that can export some stuff to Acrobat.
Very very disappointed, and dreading this conversation with the higher-ups. Let me know if anything changes! I submitted a bug report, but I know that's as useful as a chocolate teapot...
-Mary

Hello Mary,

Welcome to the forum and our community!

About eight months ago, I was in your approximate position. After a lot of research, I decided to a take a chance with Flare. Literally, job on the line decision, to recommend Flare over Adobe FrameMaker (which I had over 10 years of experience). For the most part, it has been a pleasure to work with Flare. Some of its features are fantastic, especially the large number of output formats, single sourcing, and being able to fine tune css on one screen (via NotePad ++) and see immediate results on my work screen. If you have never worked with css, you will learn to love it. The other HUGE benefit to Flare is this forum! This community is amazing. I can't tell you how many times members have helped me out of jams and as a result, helped me deliver my projects on time.

Now the downside... building image rich documentation. I experienced a number of challenges and submitted some of them to MadCap's best, only to learn that I cannot accomplish certain tasks. For instance, I wanted to create a five panel accordion fold quick setup poster with Flare.
This poster:

thumbnail.png

Unfortunately, the large number of images and their precise placements, and the two output formats needed, are not presently possible to accomplish in Flare. I had to build this poster with InDesign. InDesign also allowed me to output this poster as both a 5 panel accordion fold and a page-by-page PDF.

On the other hand, Flare (and its 'chunking' workflow) is an absolute pleasure to write in... meaning, you break down your document into individual chunks (or chapters). Also, because all your writing is saved in a non-proprietary format, no worries about data corruption or the inability to read outside the editor. I am currently writing a user guide, install guide, reference manual, and a few others. These documents all share some content and Flare is making this very easy!

If you still have doubts, just remember that some of the biggest names use Flare for their documentation... examples include: VMware, Ektron, Citrix, BOMGAR, GFI, etc. ref: http://www.madcapsoftware.com/products/flare/uses.aspx

But watch the videos... especially the recorded webinars. One of my favorites is: http://www.madcapsoftware.com/demos/pla ... 4ec1c771d1

Just keep in mind this piece of advice, don't worry! I've done a lot of research into what other companies use for tools, fonts, etc. and one thing I've learned is that it doesn't seem to matter that much. Many fortune 100 companies actually use Word 2010 for large 200 page manuals! Fonts? Few companies put much effort into using anything more than default Windows TTF fonts.

[sdcinvan]

Couldn't you just use the same font in a different file format though?

- If you paid for the font, I'd imagine the font supplier will be able to provide you with other formats.
- If it's a free font, there are a lot of free online font converters.

Also, if you're producing web-based outputs, you'd need the font in additional formats for full browser support.

Hello Dave,

I thought we covered this already. Sometimes there is no substitute for certain OTF fonts (specifically OTF postscript fonts w/hinting, etc.); this point is also valid for OTF web fonts. There can be a noticeable difference in quality and there is simply no way to convert such fonts to TTF without loss of fidelity.

[NorthEast]

Couldn't you just use the same font in a different file format though?

- If you paid for the font, I'd imagine the font supplier will be able to provide you with other formats.
- If it's a free font, there are a lot of free online font converters.

Also, if you're producing web-based outputs, you'd need the font in additional formats for full browser support.

Hello Dave,

I thought we covered this already. Sometimes there is no substitute for certain OTF fonts (specifically OTF postscript fonts w/hinting, etc.); this point is also valid for OTF web fonts. There can be a noticeable difference in quality and there is simply no way to convert such fonts to TTF without loss of fidelity.

It was more a suggestion for the poster to at least explore using the font in other formats; you'd have to find out if it's an issue for your particular font, before writing off Flare.

[Msquared]

I hit this issue at almost exactly the same time as Shawn (note I can spell your name properly now!) and I'm now using converted TTF fonts. In my case, the results are very acceptable, and there is no obvious difference between the Flare-generated PDFs using TTF and the Word-generated PDFs using OTF, although I appreciate that may not be the case for everyone.

However, when it comes to choosing which tool I'd rather use to generate my PDFs, there is absolutely no doubt that it would be Flare, Flare and more Flare every single time. When we first got Flare, my plan was to use it for all my content that needed to be single-sourced, and leave the rest in Word. I'm still in the act of converting the single-sourced content, in-between meeting project deadlines in the day job, but when I've finished converting those, I'll definitely be putting the rest in Flare too. The deciding factor is definitely the ease and automation of creating PDFs.

I suggest the OP raises a feature request as the rest of us have, and perhaps contacts MadCap support too.

[sdcinvan]

Couldn't you just use the same font in a different file format though?

- If you paid for the font, I'd imagine the font supplier will be able to provide you with other formats.
- If it's a free font, there are a lot of free online font converters.

Also, if you're producing web-based outputs, you'd need the font in additional formats for full browser support.

Hello Dave,

I thought we covered this already. Sometimes there is no substitute for certain OTF fonts (specifically OTF postscript fonts w/hinting, etc.); this point is also valid for OTF web fonts. There can be a noticeable difference in quality and there is simply no way to convert such fonts to TTF without loss of fidelity.

It was more a suggestion for the poster to at least explore using the font in other formats; you'd have to find out if it's an issue for your particular font, before writing off Flare.

Understood Dave.

In my situation, it wasn't a simple as converting the OTF fonts to TTF for two reasons:
1) I needed OTF installed in order maintain compatibility with our designers working in the Adobe products.
2) The OTF conversion resulted in an extreme loss of fidelity.

And... now you can see what happens to a Postscript type OTF when it is converted to a TTF:

OTF - TTF.png

I couldn't even get close to the look of the font as rendered in OTF. Pretty bad, huh?

[RamonS]

I may be a total ignorant here...but that fonts looks the same like Arial to me. Would the consumers of the docs even be able to tell the difference? And even if, would it be that they consider the off the shelf and found everywhere font such a distraction that the docs become less usable? I fully understand the desire of a company wide, consistent style...as long as it jives with reality. Just my additional 2 cents...feel free to leave them in the penny jar.

[Paul Griffiths]

Looks like Flare 10 supports OFT.

UPDATE: I say this because information about Flare 10 is now openly available on the MadCap website.