Using Fonts in Applications
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Using fonts in applications I. Font management skills for users on the go A. Why? You want to use different fonts in the documents that you create B. You activate and use the best fonts possible for the job C. Issues: you send the document to someone/ someplace/some other computer who does not have the fonts you used to format the text 1. Send a document to a professional print- shop 2. Email a document to a client/friend/col- league (professional or personal) D. What might happen? 1. Bad: error messages or font substitution happens when the document is opened and all your careful formatting is lost 2. Good: font is installed first and then the document opened 3. Good: font is somehow embedded in the document so that the font isn’t needed in the receiving computer (done in application) 4. Good: font automatically activates (3rd party font mgmt program) Ex: Fusion has a pref- erence to automatically activate fonts used in Office documents and plug-ins for Quark, Illustrator and InDesign II. Popular text apps that deal with missing fonts A. Introduction 1. Each application deals with missing fonts differently on the receiving end. This class will cover Microsoft Word and InDesign (both focus on text formatting) 2. This is why it’s good to have a list of the fonts that are installed with a particular application like Office or Creative Suites — hopefully to avoid the problem B. Microsoft Word (simple approach) 1. Word documents are now opened on computers that don’t have some or all of the docu- ment’s fonts, and then Word - very quietly, without telling you - uses font substitution to enable the computer to display the document text and print it. 2. Word will substitute with a different font if missing (but not change it permanently) If the document is ever opened on a computer that has that font, no substitution occurs 3. It Can Cause Errors Page 25 a. Font substitution can cause text errors. It can also cause confusion for the user, because (substituted) fonts used to display and print the text will be different to the (missing) font names indicated in such places as the Font box on the Formatting toolbar or in the Format>Font dialog box on the main menu). The names of missing fonts remain in the document and appear in these locations, even though the font has been substituted.. 4. Choosing the substituted font: a. Mac: Word..Preferences.. Compatibility..Font Substi- tution menu b. PC: Tools..Options..Compat- ibility..Font Substitution menu c. This is where you go to also check for font substitution 5. Minimizing Substitute prob- lems in Word a. Use common fonts, as • Times New Roman (Word’s main serif typeface)Avoid using • Arial (Word’s main sans serif typeface) • Courier New (Word’s main nonproportional or fixed pitch or monotype typeface) • Wingdings (symbol set) • Open type fonts as they re cross platform. b. Check for substitution c. Avoid using the Convert Permanently button d. Use common fonts for symbols. Insert>Symbol allow you to select the font C. Adobe InDesign (advanced features) — similar features are found in Adobe Illustrator 1. When the document is opened on the computer that does not have the missing font, an immediate warning message is displayed 2. Option 1: ignore the message and open the document (text formatted in the missing font will be displayed with pink highlighting) a. Useful if you are doing a simple edit and sending the document back to a computer with that font installed b. In the Type..Font menu, a special “missing” category is at the top of the list 3. Open Type>Find Font menu, where you can substitute the missing font with a different font installed on that computer (if you save the document, this is permanent if the docu- ment visits a different computer) a. A lot of technical font information is displayed in the More Info area of the panel b. Quark has a similar feature in the Utilities..Usage menu Page 26 III. Collecting fonts for transferring to another computer A. Translation: how do you make a copy of a font to take to another computer? It still has to be installed on the other computer B. OS: copy the font yourself from the Fonts folder C. Adobe InDesign: choose the File..Package menu command to make a copy of the document, graphics and fonts used in document into a new folder ready for transport D. Quark: choose the File..Collect for Output menu for the same thing as InDesign E. 3rd party font management programs (you have to choose which fonts are copied) 1. (Mac and PC) Fusion: a. Drag and drop fonts to the desktop and they automatically copy into a Collected Fonts folder on the desktop. or any other Media, as a flash drive b. Choose File > Collect Fonts for Output. In the Collect for Output dialog box, navigate to any drive, media, or location you wish and click Select 2. (Mac) Font Book: select the desired fonts and choose the File..Export Fonts menu IV. Embedding and converting fonts in a document A. Different approaches: 1. The font is converted to a graphic shape (outline) so that it is represented mathematically like a circle 2. Font information is actually embedded into the document so that when it’s opened on a different computer, missing fonts aren’t even an issue B. When this is useful: sending a document to some professional print shops that do not install custom fonts or sending a PC document to a Mac when the font isn’t available for the Mac C. Converting text to shapes 1. Once text is converted to a shape, it can’t be edited or formatted 2. Popular graphics/desktop publishing applications that convert text to shapes (PostScript) are Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator. a. Select the text object with the Selection tool and choose the Type..Create Outlines menu. Each character is converted to a separate shape b. Quark has an awkward interface to convert text to shapes D. Embedding a font in a document 1. Creating a PDF (Portable Document Format) a. Universal file that can be read on any computer using the free Adobe Reader program b. PDF files will automatically embed the font information when created c. What programs can create a PDF file with embedded fonts? • Vector graphics programs in Adobe Creative Suites(Adobe Illustrator and InDesign) • Raster graphic program Adobe Photoshop Not as crisp and scalable as when using Illustrator or InDesign Page 27 • Adobe Acrobat specializes in creating and customizing PDFs from any document that can be printed (including websites) • Microsoft Office includes a PDF menu (Windows only) and PDF Maker buttons in the toolbar when Acrobat is installed 2. Other Adobe application features a. You can create an EPS graphic (common vector graphic format) from Illustrator using the File..Save As menu —there is a dialog box feature to turn on font embedding or not b. Photoshop text layers (or the entire document) can be flattened into pixels, so at that embedding a font or creating an outline isn’t an option V. When selecting a font — nice to have features A. WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) font menus in Office programs 1. Formatted WYSIWYG menu when selecting a font a. No support for font families (each font listed separately) b. Font menu has most recent fonts used at top of list 2. Adobe InDesign and Illustrator a. Formatted WYSIWYG menus b. Support for font families c. Can change the size of the for- matted sample in the Prefer- ences menu B. Creating printed font sample books 1. Collection of printed pages with a sample of one font on each page 2. Windows. a. Double-click on a font in the Fonts folder b. Print the waterfall display of the font 3. Macintosh a. Double-click on a font in the Fonts folder (starts Font Book) to see samples on the screen. Choose Print from the file menu 4. 3rd party font management pro- grams also have this feature Thank you, Cyndi Reese, for the basics of these notes Page 28.