font versions

Hi, all.  I recently had a problem crop up at my office - text within a .cdr file that I was working on cooperatively with a co-worker displayed differently on our computers. It turned out that we had different versions of the main font that was used in the file; they looked more or less the same, but subtle differences in the versions added up, resulting in a noticeably different look when it was opened on each of our PCs. 

 
So, my question is, are different font versions a common problem?  I wouldn't have thought to look for this as the source of the difficulty, but someone over at the CorelDraw newsgroup suggested that I look at the "modified" dates on each version of the font, and sure enough they were different.  Once my coworker and I had the same version of the font, the problem went away.

 

Hello Matt,

since aeons ago, different foundries have made their own renditions or -in the worst scenarios- copycats of fonts classical and new. I think every existing foundry in the world has its own Garamond version, for example. Sometimes the name of the font changes, but the way the font creator programme handles them gives the user the impression of the same name, hence the name/version confusion. Add to that that sometimes foundries update their fonts, either adding glyphs or making improvements to the existing ones or changing their format (happens a lot nowadays, since TT and T1 are being abandoned in favour of OT). The best you can do is to generate a shared folder among your colleagues and deposit there your core fonts, so everybody will be on the same track. Just be sure that the ones on this folder are the best of the doubled ones you got.

 If you both use CorelDRAW then the differens of fonts would only differ if you have different versions of CorelDRAW I guess. But I have never heard though that different versions of CorelDRAW would have different font versions. I guess someone from Corel could answer about this, or some other great wizkid/girl could enlighten us. That said, yes generally different font version, regardless of Computer versions can be very common. Especially among graphic designers working with fonts.

 

 

 

 Thanks Foster,

Although I had not heard about this issue regarding different versions of coreldraw, I did have a hunch it would be as you said. Great to learn something new.

 

Thanks to everyone who responded; it's quite common in my office for two or more of us to work on a file before it is done, so we'll have to work on reconciling all of our font versions in-house.  It's distressing that different font versions are evidently so widespread; our print vendor typically prints directly from the native .cdr file that we send them; we send them the appropriate fonts, but there's still the possibility that they could print something using their version of a font, which could be subtly different from our version, and throw the whole thing off!  What a nuisance.

 

To avoid those nasty surprises, be sure to save a .cdr copy of your file with all fonts converted to curves, and send that copy to your printer. In this way the fonts will cease being fonts, but just vector outlines and thus, they won't be changed. To convert to curves, select text and press CTRL Q.

Sounds like something we should do, Mosh.  Our method has been to leave the text as text, so that if the printer catches any mistakes that we missed (happens more than I would like to admit), they can correct them for us.  We might have to start sending them a "curves" copy to print from, and a text copy just in case...

Here is what should be able to be done, Embed the fonts.

However, I may be whipping a dead horse here.

When I get work from a local artist that does the art for the local schools cheerleading I ask her to embed the fonts.

But what I get is one shot I open it the first time it will work and the next time I open the file it tries to substitute the font.

Maybe I don't understand the embed feature but I would think embedding a font would put a font internal in the corel file and it would work in theory for ever.
 

How do you embed the fonts?

In the save dialog box, click on the "Options >>" button at the bottom and select "Embed Fonts".

Gérard 

 When you "save as" in he lower left corner there is "Options" if it is open the is an option you can select "Embed Fonts using TrueDoc (TM)"

This give you the opportunity to have another person work on the file without giving them the font, however, like I said I've recently had some grief with it.

If this were to work correctly there would be no need to convert text to curve until it is finished and then it might be a moot point.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Buff 

 Ok, I will test that feature.  Thanks.

But what I get is one shot I open it the first time it will work and the next time I open the file it tries to substitute the font.

This is a problem that I've encountered as well.

The beauty of a designer/client supplying a corel file to a printer vs. an exported PDF is that last-minute corrections/changes that would be difficult or too difficult to make with a PDF are often extremely easy to make in the draw file. (e.g. adding a missed caption word, moving a large group of things so the hit the fold right, adjusting the bleeds or objects relative to the fold position, etc.) But if I adjust and save, the next time I open the embedded fonts are lost. Even if I use the saveas and click the embed fonts checkbox I still don't seem to retain them when I reopen the edited file that originally had fonts embedded.

Am I missing something? Or is this the way font licensing issues force it to work. It is a major drawback.

I'm afraid it's a font license issue. Most licenses allow you to embed
for viewing, but not for editing. If you want to edit, you have to have
a full licensed version of the font on your system.
It's kind of a drawback that shouldn't affect when you're editing
non-text objects in the file or the position of a whole page, but
probably does.
Val P.

Island wrote:
> But what I get is one shot I open it the first time it will work and
> the next time I open the file it tries to substitute the font.
>
> This is a problem that I've encountered as well.
>
> The beauty of a designer/client supplying a corel file to a printer vs.
> an exported PDF is that last-minute corrections/changes that would be
> difficult or too difficult to make with a PDF are often extremely easy
> to make in the draw file. (e.g. adding a missed caption word, moving a
> large group of things so the hit the fold right, adjusting the bleeds or
> objects relative to the fold position, etc.) But if I adjust and save,
> the next time I open the embedded fonts are lost. Even if I use the
> saveas and click the embed fonts checkbox I still don't seem to retain
> them when I reopen the edited file that originally had fonts embedded.
>
> Am I missing something? Or is this the way font licensing issues force
> it to work. It is a major drawback.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Color Printing Forum
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> http://coreldraw.com/forums/p/540/2655.aspx#2655
>