Missing font remap?

[Anonymous]

Hello all,

I have encountered a font problem recently with my Mac Pro. At some point one of my custom font files has become corrupt. This is not a big deal with new drawings as I can easily substitute another that I like. With all the old drawings that I have however, I do not want to spend a great deal of time updating all of my text and leaders. Is there a way to remap to another font on OS X 10.4.10?

If this is a simple fix or another alternative to updating hundreds of standard models with a massive "search and replace" that would be great as well. The fastest way that I have seen in doing the change per story as archicad doesn't seem to search an entire file. Am I making this more difficult than it needs to be? Do i just need to "Pony up" to the many hours of extra work? I hope not! Up for any ideas!

Thanks in advance,
Chris


Mac Pro - OSX 10.4.10
2x2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
13GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
ArchiCAD 11 build 1086 USA

[Anonymous]

You can't replace the corrupted file with a good one?

[Anonymous]

I haven't tried to use this font on the Mac until recently. I think that it is a cross platform compatibility issue instead of a corrupt file. I fired up parallels and the font works on it, so looks like old drawings may be done on the "Pee-Cee" side of this beast. I would rather find another solution to keep me in the Mac World though...

[Anonymous]

There are some utilities that allow you to convert fonts between different formats/platforms. I have used TransType Pro in the past to good effect, but as I recall it is commercial software. You could check on versiontracker.com to see what's out there.

[Anonymous]

That worked perfectly Matthew! Thank you SO much! Went with TransType Pro like you suggested. Three clicks and the font works great.
Thanks again,
Chris

[Thomas Holm]

Windows' .ttf TrueType fonts should work without conversion in MacOSX. So the real issue might still be that the font in the first place was corrupted.

To resolve font issues, Linotype FontExplorer (free) is the way to go. http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX

[Anonymous]

Thomas wrote:
Windows' .ttf TrueType fonts should work without conversion in MacOSX.

In my experience TrueType has to be converted between Mac and Windows. It is OpenType that is cross platform.

[Anonymous]

Hey Guys,
The font was a .ttf windows file. It's really a little odd though, because I have others that are the same format and are working on the Mac. Not sure if this one was corrupt or not, but I don't think it was as it was working on the Windows side. I found another copy of the font as well, and this one had a date stamp of 1996 and didn't work either, so I don't think it was corrupt. After I converted the file over (both .OTF and .FFIL to test) it worked fine. I read an article last night about files created on older platforms not working as a true universal font. Not sure if this was the case here, but it is working, and I am happy. If I have a font that doesn't work again (hope not 😉, I will give the other program a shot as well.
Thanks for all the help!
Chris

[Thomas Holm]

Chris,

I think you're right, the issue here was that the font was old and not completely compliant with the standard. The conversion made it work.

The Linotype FontExplorer program is of course primarlily made to sell Linotype fonts, but it's made by professionals for professionals in the prepress industry, so it's an excellent font manager and at the same time good at resolving font conflicts and keeping track of corrupt fonts. There are lots of reviews on the 'Net if you want to check it out.

But Matthew, I'm sorry to differ this time. Windows .TTF (TrueType) fonts work well in MacOSX. I've got a bunch right now, and have had for some years. This tip
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=100533#100533
wouldn't work if this wasn't true, but it does!