Missing fonts in InDesign

[Cherie_Reed@adobeforums.com]

I have been having a problem with 'phantom' fonts in InDesign. The document will come up with a font that is either missing or not activated. When I go to 'find fonts' and try to change the missing font to something else, InDesign doesn't find the font, and won't substitute another one.
I've tried closing all of the fonts that the document is asking for and looking for a hightlighted area, checking all of the master pages and checking all of the styles in both character and paragraph palettes, and can't find the asked-for font anywhere in the document. Yet I cannont get rid of the 'missing font'.
Any ideas?

[Larry_Grohman@adobeforums.com]

I've run into similar problems, but mostly on our Macs and those are
generally traceable to Mac dfonts conflicting with the target font. (I know
that doesn't help you much)

Could also be a font that was introduced with an imported image, and then
deleted. Try exporting as InDesign interchange, then reopen that file with
InDesign. For some reason this process is like a digital enema and fixes a
lot of ills.

Larry

[Ken_Grace@adobeforums.com]

Larry,

I've just tried your digital enema and I don't get the effect that you do.
Certainly the INX file is smaller - one I've just made was less than half
the size of the InDesign file - but when I opened the INX files and resaved
them as InDesign they were just as big as before, in one case bigger.

I'm not familiar with InDesign Interchange - the manual and help files are
useless on this topic: they tell you how to export in Interchange format but
don't tell you why you would want to - but the title suggests that it's a
format for moving files about so I guess has a form of compression.

Certainly ducking in and out of the INX format may help to solve missing
font problems. One file that opened as an INDD file indicating a problem
with Zapf Chancery, in which the 'missing' font was actually described as
the font on the system, declared it to be Zapf Chancery Eastern European in
the INX format and using find font to replace it with the correct font
stopped the error message when the file was resaved and reopened as INDD.

But then, another file which has always opened with no problems as an INDD
file, when exported to INX and reopened, suddenly couldn't find Stencil.

The into-INX-and-back routine may well smooth out persistent ghost missing
font problems, but I don't think it has anything to offer over Save As for
minimising file size.

k

[Larry_Grohman@adobeforums.com]

Ken,

I presented this process as just something to try. I know it has helped some
people with crashing problems that could not be weeded out in the original
file, many associated with font problems. I hope you did not infer that I
suggested this as an absolute cure-all.

And as to what exactly this file format exactly is; I believe it was
intended to be the intermediate format for saving back to InDesign 2. But as
we now know, that functionality was not introduced with the release of CS,
so that export format is just hanging around, perhaps to be incorporated in
some workflow options down the line.

Just as an editorial coment, I find InDesign CS to be less stable the ID2.
Things like you are seeing, as well more crashing problems, odd behavier
with Tab paletts and Info palette to name a few. Now I'm not saying this is
a total disaster and we do use CS every day usually without issue. It just
needs better stability in my opionion.

Larry

[Ken_Grace@adobeforums.com]

Larry

"I hope you did not infer that I suggested this as an absolute cure-all."

Absolutely not. In fact, looking back I see you didn't actually say in this
post that the INX format reduced file sizes, but someone, possibly you, has
said so in the past.

I thought I was just being ignorant in not knowing what this file structure
is for. But if, as you surmise, its purpose was just as a vehicle for the
ill-fated backward saving routine, then perhaps that explains why it does
what it does and why we've been seeing different results.

If it was intended to strip out all non-InDesign 2-compatible features, then
I would expect to see smaller files as a result of losing the coding for
transparency. But as the files I was testing didn't have any of these
features, there was nothing to strip out, so they didn't get any smaller.

But if this guesswork is correct, there ought to be a danger in using your
'digital enema' in that you would lose the CS-only formatting. Having made a
test file full of transparency features it's clear that exporting as INX
doesn't strip them out. So it looks a reasonably safe option for trying to
sort out rogue files.

So does anyone know what the InDesign Interchange export function is for? It
seems odd that if the backward compatibility plug-in couldn't be included as
planned, the export filter should be left in CS.

k

[Larry_Grohman@adobeforums.com]

Yes, it would be nice to have some solid information on what this format is
all about.

I think we are all guessing.

There was a thread from April 20 in the ID Mac forum titled "PLEASE HELP -
ON DEADLINE AND GETTING CRASHES"
that brought this up as a cure for crashing problems. Read through that
thread if you have not.

Larry
..

[Dave_Saunders@adobeforums.com]

I don't believe the format strips out anything. My experience bears this out, but I've probably not used everything that's CS only, so take my belief with as large a pinch of salt as you wish.

The hard work of dealing with representing CS-stuff in 2.02 was supposed to have been the job of the 2.02 importer and I suspect it was the enormity of that task (compounded by user feedback that they wanted perfect round-tripping and/or printing) that put at end to the release of that importer.

However, a search of the InDesign knowledgebase on likely terms yielded no information about the interchange format, so I agree that it would be good for there to be a formal statement from Adobe of what it is and what it's for.

Meanwhile, I continue to use it every time I get the impression that one of my documents would benefit from an oil-change.

Dave

[Ken_Grace@adobeforums.com]

Interesting comments Larry and Dave.

I can't help thinking of the emperor's new clothes. InDesign arrives in a
new format (CS); it has an additional export function (INX); since its
arrival I haven't seen any question in this forum asking what INX does
("it's probably to do with something that I have no involvement with but
it's there so it must do something").

T'would be interesting if any of the Adobe folk who visit here could add
some elucidation.

Was this export format devised purely as an infeed to a version 2 plug-in to
read later files or does it have any other use?
Was it left in the CS export filters because this plug-in might someday
happen, or did someone forget to take it out?
It appears to analyse and rebuild files with at least one effect of
reassessing the fonts that have been used. Can anyone describe what actually
happens in the conversion to an INX file?
Can anyone say whether dipping in and out of INX format is dangerous?

k

[Ken_Grace@adobeforums.com]

Larry

I read the thread you suggested and also "What are InDesign Interchange
files for? " .

Seems the Mac forum has been rather more aware of INX than the PC forum.

But still no-one seems to know what it's for.

We should be told...

k