For the last few weeks i've been having a problem where a seemingly completely random selection of fonts just won't work in Corel. These are 'not installed' fonts in a location that is monitored by Font Manager. The fonts show fine in Font Manager, and in the font list in CorelDraw. They even preview correctly at the bottom of the font list. However, when chosen, the text jumps back to arial. There seems to be no consistency in the type of font, and sometimes some members of a font family work and others don't.
Just to clarify how we are set up, we use OneDrive to synchronise fonts between all users here. We have a folder called Active Fonts on each computer which is synchronised by Onedrive. When someone uses a new font, they add the font to this drive and Onedrive then updates the local folder on everyones computer. It avoids having thousands of fonts on a network drive which really slowed things down, keeps the fonts the same for all users, and has been working perfectly for a few years now.
I've made a little video showing this behaviour. As you can see, the majority of fonts are wokring fine, but a significant number just revert to Arial, and there doesn't seem to be any logical reason. The video is at:
https://vimeo.com/640302962
I've tried repairing Corel, uninstalling and reinstalling Corel, resetting the font database, but nothing helps. Any ideas what is going on here?
OK, so this problem is already starting to cost us money. We have had a file today that was opened as normal, saved as a PDF and sent to print. There were no warnings when the file was opened, but in one part of the document, the font used failed to open and changed to Arial. The customer is now wanting a reprint. I would be grateful if someone could look into this issue urgently please and let me know if there is any fix, as this has the potential to be an extremely expensive issue if this happens on a larger job.
First why would you sync fonts with OneDrive? Try this, place all fonts on the local system, install the fonts you want to use into Windows. DO NOT embed fonts into your CorelDRAW file.
We do this so that everyone has the exact same fonts on their computer and available to Font Manager, but without having to have 3600 fonts installed, or having to pull 3600 fonts in from a network drive.
We have 6 members of staff all needing to be able to open and edit customer files. We used to have to spend hours messing about with staff having to download and install fonts when they wanted to open a file someone else had made, to then find out they've installed a fractionally different version of the same font which has messed up the file. Onedrive is a very simple way to ensure that the 'active fonts' folder has exactly the same font files in it on every computer. As soon as I drop a few new font files into this folder, they are automatically synced into the active fonts folder on all other users computers. Font manager then sees the new fonts and makes them available to Coreldraw. It's worked perfectly for around 2-3 years, until now.
I don't think this has anything to do with OneDrive, not least because Claudio seems to be having the same issue. As far as Font Manager is concerned, the Active Fonts folder is just a normal folder on my C drive.
I first would hire new IT support, if your files are on OneDrive they can't be in an active folder on your C drive except as shortcuts. They're in the cloud or they are not in the cloud.
Try moving the fonts locally. Starting with the 2018 version we tried using a single networked folder for fonts usage as the application was designed and the network demand on gigabyte network was too much. The font manager is still the same process in 2021.
Today the network folder contains all font files as a common resource like your OneDrive setup but vastly faster with all fonts in alphabetic folders, that is unless your network is a mess, however all fonts for each system are loaded in Windows from that single network location as needed, unless the font comes from a client.
When designing we use CFM to find a font, load it into Windows, no linking via CFM, no font embedding when saving files.
As output professionals we require all fonts to be provided by the client. Before we open a client's file we note the fonts, uninstall our fonts if needed and install the clients provided font files. No font embedding.
In Draw we filter out all fonts except installed and system fonts, we turn off using the font to display the font name. On all of our systems all fonts that SUPPORT EMBEDDING in export filters function, those that don't are not used or converted to curves. This works on all systems, most systems have 2,000 to 4,000 fonts installed, we have maybe 14,000 on the server as fonts owned by us.
David Milisock said:if your files are on OneDrive they can't be in an active folder on your C drive except as shortcuts. They're in the cloud or they are not in the cloud.
They can.If I understand correctly, the files are stored in a OneDrive folder which all local computers synchronize their local font folders with, and this means that all computers will have a local copy of the shared font folder.If a new font is added on a local computer, it will automatically be uploaded to the cloud folder and then downloaded to all the other local disks.I have a similar arrangement on my local network, because using Font Manager with thousands of fonts stored on a network drive only is extremely slow and a very bad idea.Difference is that my folders are synchronized only when I boot the computer, so if I need instant synchronization I have to do it manually.
That is absolutely correct. The files are synchronised to a local folder (e.g., C:\Users\DS\OneDrive\Active Fonts) on each users computer so everyone is working from a proper local version of the file. You can actually see this on the video I posted. There is an option to 'download files on demand' in Onedrive, but this is of course disabled so all files are download to local drives. The system has always worked brilliantly, as new fonts added are synchronised to users computers within seconds of being added.
Just to confirm that this is definitely nothing to do with Onedrive though, I've copied all my fonts to a new folder (C:/Fonts), removed the old folder from Font Manager and added the new one, and the exact same problem is still happening. I've done another video at:
https://vimeo.com/641441797
scarrott said:Just to confirm that this is definitely nothing to do with Onedrive though, I've copied all my fonts to a new folder (C:/Fonts), removed the old folder from Font Manager and added the new one, and the exact same problem is still happening. I've done another video at:
I can confirm! I've the fonts on a local folder (C:/Fonts) and suffer the same problem!
First off Corel Font Manager is a MESS! If files exist in a OneDrive folder they are in the cloud. You my have an active folder on your system but the files reside in the cloud. OneDrive, Google Drive, CLOUD DRIVES!
Corel Font Manager has serious issues with large font libraries, even if stored on the local system. I moved one copy of my entire library to a secondary drive on my local system as a test and it still took 45 minutes to build the font data base.
The first attempt took over night and I found some invalid fonts, removed them and then it still took 45 minutes.The cloud storage may or may not have anything to do with this issue but you have to start some where.
I would ask if the network is wired or wireless? Are these systems laptops? Have all fonts been checked for validation? Are all fonts print fonts? Do all fonts support embedding for PDF.
I gave instructions for what I do and on occasion I'll have an issue with a bad font but 99% of the time it works.
With that said with my configuration ZERO of the supposedly advanced features work. I use CFM just like I did Adobe Type Manager in Windows 3.1 and CorelDRAW flies like a rocket and my fonts work.
David, we've tried to explain this to you and you need to please accept what we are saying. Onedrive is a cloud service, and it does synchronise files through the cloud, but it does allows you to keep a completely local copy of files. They reside both in the cloud AND locally. All the files that are in the Cloud are also synchronised to a local folder on each of our computers. You can argue till you are blue in the face, the fact is that the files are still kept locally in a folder on my C: drive. I can access them both in Explorer and through the command prompt. They are genuine, local files. As I mentioned, i've tested this with all the fonts copied to another standard folder on the C drive anyway.
In my case, all the PCs are desktops. They are one a wired network. All fonts are valid and have been used perfectly successfully for many years.
This is 100% to do with the 'Subscriber Update'. We have a couple of users here who haven't installed the update yet, and they are having no problems. I've just installed the update on a PC that is currently not in use, and after Font Manager had added the fonts again (which took about 5mins for 3000 fonts), instantly saw the exact same problem and with the exact same fonts.
So you're simply using OneDrive as a backup/share folder and accessing fonts locally, that's not what was said originally.
Now name the fonts and the version of the fonts or link for me to download and I'll test your fonts on my system.
Do you embed fonts in your CorelDRAW files? Are you using the advanced features for font management? Do you have all the latest Windows Updates? I assume Windows 10? Is it Pro or Home?
In the mean time have you tested to see if the offending fonts convert to curves properly when published to PDF.