Font issue

[Bill Ward]

We are printing a file for a customer from their native InDesign file. (We send to Fiery>impose and print on a Canon Image Press 8000).
The customer supplied the font (Muli), we're also able to activate the font on Adobe, we even dropped the customer supplied font into the Adobe/Fonts folder and it still prints funky. (It substitutes a serif font and crunches all the characters together). We're not getting any missing font warnings and it displays fine on the PC - but it displays with the wonky font on the Fiery impose.
Sure, we can convert to outlines but the customer occasionally has text edits and we'd rather know what the heck is going on.

 

[chriscozi]

Ahhh. This could be interesting.
Adobe says 'Free'.
Try using the real free font here: Muli
IF this one works maybe there is an Adobe problem???

 

[abc]

What happens if you export from Indesign to a PDF.
Are the fonts embedded?

 

[Bill Ward]

What happens if you export from Indesign to a PDF.
Are the fonts embedded?

Actually that worked. Thanks for the suggestion. The reason we didn't try that initially is because the designer supplied us with a (supposed) print ready PDF as well as the InDesign file and we got two different issues when printing them.
Printing from the customer's PDF (see below) caused some of the type to bold (G,t) but kept most of the font intact,

whereas printing straight from the InDesign file caused the really wonky shift.

We thought perhaps it was a licensing issue because both the customer supplied ID file and the pdf display fine.

 

[abc]

A wise man once said 'Font is a four letter word beginning with F'

 

[chriscozi]

Actually that worked. Thanks for the suggestion. The reason we didn't try that initially is because the designer supplied us with a (supposed) print ready PDF as well as the InDesign file and we got two different issues when printing them.
Printing from the customer's PDF (see below) caused some of the type to bold (G,t) but kept most of the font intact,

whereas printing straight from the InDesign file caused the really wonky shift.

We thought perhaps it was a licensing issue because both the customer supplied ID file and the pdf display fine.

Ok.
That is what I suspected.

This is a free font. One that Adobe doesn't control, can't charge you for, and can't bully the creator to adopt their guidelines.
They MUST have put in place mechanisms to control the 'right' fonts in their applications.
Ergo the issue you saw was CAUSED by their app refusing to embed/parse an un-approved font.
When you actually loaded the real font in your system you bypassed their control mechanism(s).
Sigh.
So we can expect more draconian measures in the future.
Not surprising, really, as that is where they are moving with their online type library that they control and you WILL end up paying for eventually.
In their defense they can say that the font doesn't meet their stringent quality guidelines so they are really saving your document from those pesky problems you (cough, cough) complain about all the time.
Ok. Rant over - for now.
- You aren't paranoid if they really ARE out to get you.

 

[TBird-F16]

A wise man once said 'Font is a four letter word beginning with F'

I've been saying that sentence for many, many years and it still holds true today. I've said it so often, that I'll probably use it in my retirement speech.

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Ok.
That is what I suspected.

This is a free font. One that Adobe doesn't control, can't charge you for, and can't bully the creator to adopt their guidelines.
They MUST have put in place mechanisms to control the 'right' fonts in their applications.
Ergo the issue you saw was CAUSED by their app refusing to embed/parse an un-approved font.
When you actually loaded the real font in your system you bypassed their control mechanism(s).
Sigh.
So we can expect more draconian measures in the future.
Not surprising, really, as that is where they are moving with their online type library that they control and you WILL end up paying for eventually.
In their defense they can say that the font doesn't meet their stringent quality guidelines so they are really saving your document from those pesky problems you (cough, cough) complain about all the time.
Ok. Rant over - for now.
- You aren't paranoid if they really ARE out to get you.

Sorry that you are into conspiracy theories and rants! There is absolutely nothing in Adobe's code that forces you to use fonts sourced from Adobe or anyone else. Nor has Adobe ever “bullied” any font creator to adopt “their” guidelines. The only requirement for successful use of any font in Adobe applications is that the font conform to the specifications for either OpenType TrueType or OpenType CFF fonts – that specification is not owned by or controlled in any way by Adobe – and that for production of PDF (or similar formats), the font has OS/2 fsType switches set to allow for embedding such fonts.

The only time you will have issues with font embedding is if (1) the font itself is tagged by its creator to not allow embedding (such as in PDF files) or (2) the font implementation is wonky and regrettably, there are plenty such fonts out there. In either case, without the font file itself to examine, one cannot definitively say what the exact problem is. Based on the samples shown by @Bill Ward above, it looks like the font does not allow for embedding yielding Courier substitution.

- Dov