Myriad Pro Cond font not working for print medium

[shannon]

I have set up my stylesheet to use Myriad Pro Cond for print. For some reason this is not working. It does not seem to be just an issue of the font. I tried setting my default medium to Myriad Pro Cond and it shows up correctly in HTML Help. However, it still does not show up correctly in print (PDF). Any ideas?

[SteveS]

Hi Shannon,

Welcome to the forums.

Have you set the media property for the target?

Double click the target in the project organiser and open the advanced tab. The media can be set to print here using the stylesheet medium.

[shannon]

Thank you!

I do have the target set to use the print medium. I also have the print medium selected in the editor, but the text is not appearing correctly there either.

[SteveS]

Have you tried using a different font - one that you can readily identify as having changed? That way you can rule out the actual font being the problem. (I'm thinking about the settings for font substition you see in the Adobe distiller and wondering if there is something like that going on behind the scene.)

[scottjosephson]

I've been following this thread, as we also use a Myriad Pro font for our printed documentation.

We can see the Myriad Pro font when viewing the print medium within the Flare interface, but we are unable to:
- Select Myriad Pro as a font (it only appears in the Font list when read from our stylesheet)
- Output PDF targets (set to the print medium) containing this font

Any suggestions on how Flare can recognize the Myriad Pro font? We are using Flare 4.0.

Thanks.
Scott

[LTinker68]

Is Myriad Pro a Type 1 font? There's another thread where the conclusion was that Capture doesn't yet support using Type 1 fonts. If Capture doesn't support it then Flare might not, although you'd have to double-check that with tech support.

[scottjosephson]

Myriad Pro is an OpenType font, so it shouldn't have the same issues experienced with Type 1 fonts. The strange thing is that we can see Myriad Pro within Flare, just not in the output (or select it as a Font for Page Layouts, etc.)

[KevinDAmery]

Do other Open Type fonts have the same issue? I seem to recall that earlier versions of Flare didn't work well with Open Type - that may still be the case.

[SteveS]

...and welcome to the forums Scott.

[shannon]

I did a quick test, and this does seem to be a problem for at least some other Open Type fonts.

[scottjosephson]

Thanks to all for your replies. I've escalated this to MadCap Technical Support and will share the results upon receipt.

[scottjosephson]

The verdict from Technical Support is in. They were able to replicate the issue and have put in a feature suggestion to support the Myriad Pro font family.

If you use this font, I recommend escalating it to Madcap Technical Support and referencing Bug 24242. Hopefully this will help the issue garner more attention for inclusion in a future release.

[doc_guy]

For what it is worth, this still seems to be an issue in 4.2.1. I'm using a different OpenType font, and it also doesn't work in PDF output (though, I can't see any OpenType font in the Flare style sheet editor, but I typed in the font name manually, and it doesn't work).

I've also opened a case with MadCap regarding support for OpenType fonts.

Really, it's hard to compete with layout programs like Frame and InDesign when you can't output OpenType fonts....

[Sharpras]

MYRIAD WEB NOT WORKING IN NON-PRINT MEDIUM, EITHER:
I am having similar issues: Flare 5.0 doesn't recognized any of the Myriad fonts. I can select them in my stylesheet, they show up in the Flare editor, but when I compile HTML Help, Myriad Web looks like Times New Roman.

In the stylesheet, I noticed that when I attempt to change the Font Family, and then click INSTALLED FAMILIES, none of the Myriad fonts show up. What makes this really strange, is that I can add Myriad Web to My Favorite Families, and they show up in Recent Families.

[forfear]

i think this would fit into that ever building request for
Open Type font support.

Am pretty sure the dev team are on these since a lot professional type foundries are moving towards this standard font format

[doc_guy]

You aren't going to want to use Myriad in your WebHelp or HTML Help outputs, unless you know that all your target audience will have the font installed on their system. As Myriad Pro is not a free font (it is licensed from Adobe), you will want to either ensure you have it on all the computers viewing your help system, or you will need to specify a back-up font for those computers that don't have it.

However, Flare is built on the .NET framework, and the .NET framework doesn't support OpenType fonts that weren't created by Micro$oft. So, it would appear that currently MadCap has their hands tied due to the limitations of the framework.

[KevinDAmery]

However, Flare is built on the .NET framework, and the .NET framework doesn't support OpenType fonts that weren't created by Micro$oft. So, it would appear that currently MadCap has their hands tied due to the limitations of the framework.

So we should send the hate mail to Steve Ballmer?

[forfear]

So there is more to this OpenType font support issue. I guess its a limitation of legacy GDI+ implementations limiting wider OpenType font support.
In any respect, Publisher 2010 seems to be offering more variety of OpenType support. We're all moving there somehow in the future.

Who knows?
At some point, I think developers will either move to Windows Presentation Foundation's typography features or Microsoft might fix GDI+ and call it GDI2+.

Anyway good to know why some Open Type fonts work and some Open Type fonts (from Adobe) don't display at the moment.

[pelikano]

Just wanted to says thanks to all the brilliant posters on these forums. I am finding postings such as this one invaluable. A lot of great information to be found here.

P.

[wbrisett]

This issues is directly related to Open Type Fonts. To fix this issue, I cheated. I have converted my open type Myriad Pro to a Type 1 font. Technically that's not allowed per the license agreement from Adobe, but that's our corporate font and I had to use Myriad Pro. Do a search here for Open Type font and I'm sure it will bring up a discussion I started a couple of years ago on this issue.

Wayne

[pelikano]

I will look for those discussions.

Thanks, Wayne!

[ArmandFrvr]

Are we any closer to getting support for these fonts? Myriad Pro is the font specified by our company guidelines, so all of our hard-copy documentation needs to use it. I noticed that my MP fonts do not show up in Flare version 9.

[pelikano]

Are we any closer to getting support for these fonts? ....

Apparently not.

I raised the issue with support recently and was simply told No. But they were nice enough to log it on the product planning request list or whatever it is called.

I saw no mention of it in the Flare 9 release info or webinar demo. Now you have confirmed directly--thanks for posting this!


Of all the features for a leading documentation product to lack....

[Nita Beck]

Is it still not so that the problem is not a limitation of Flare but a limitation of the .NET platform it rests on? Is it even possible for the MadCap developers to fix a bug (or add an enhancement) in software that they are not the developers of? This isn't to say that I don't wish there were a fix for this, too. A client of mine who has a proprietary OpenType corporate font finally got me a TrueType version of it, and then I was able to produce their pubs with that font.

[wbrisett]

Digging around a bit in several of the MS developer forums, here is what I gleaned.

The issue is that currently OpenType fonts that use PostScript outlines (Adobe) are not supported in GDI+ used by the .NET framework. The biggest issue as Nita points out, is Flare is built upon the .net framework. All the baggage (issues) of .net unfortunately gets inherited by Flare. So some OpenType fonts will work (those without PostScript outlines) and some won't. The only solution is going to be getting a typeface in PostScript or TrueType if it doesn't show up. While this isn't the best or always the perfect solution, I really don't see any other way around this issue. If you are stuck with OpenType fonts that don't work, and you can't get a TrueType or PostScript version, your next best solution is to use one of the many tools that can convert or generate typefaces. Obviously it's up to you to make sure you comply with all licensing issues (which typically forbid converting), but that's an issue for you and your company.

Wayne