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.
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.
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.
We are using OneDrive simply as a method of ensuring all designers have access to the same fonts at the same time. So if designer A want to use a new font in a design they add it to their 'Active Fonts' folder. Onedrive synchronises this new font file into everyones C:\users\{username}\Onedrive\Active Fonts folder. This is synchronised to everyone elses equivalent folder which is indexed by Font Manager. Then designer B can open the same file and make changes to it without having to dig out fonts and manually add them to their system. It's genuinely a brilliant system and works perfectly. It is exactly what I said to start with, i said:
"...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."
Once again though, it is completely unconnected to this issue and irrelevant here.
I've zipped up some of the problem fonts and they can be downloaded from https://we.tl/t-3SSZRvoaQb. These are all Google Fonts so we can distribute them here without any issues with copyright. The file contains 4 versions of Arvo, the Epilogue variable font and the 20 varieties of Fira Sans. All of these are causing the issue except for Fira Sans Eight, Firs Sans Thin and Fira Sans Heavy (and the italic equivalents) which are all working as normal.
Just to note, we are only seeing this problem on systems with the subscriber update, so the Title Bar shows as Coreldraw 2021.5 and Corel Font Manager 2021.5. If you aren't seeing this as the program name, you won't see the problem.
We sometimes embed fonts,and sometimes don't. It doesn't affect this issue as the problem happens in a completely blank new file (as shown on my 2 videos). If a file is opened which contains a problem font, whether embedded or not, it changes to Arial.
I'm not sure what 'advanced features' you are referring to. We are simply adding a single local folder into Corel Font Manager and trying to use fonts from that folder. Could you clarify what you mean?
We are Windows 10 Pro and it is fully updated.
We can't convert the fonts to curves or publish to PDF as the font instantly changes to Arial when it is selected. As you can see on the video, the font changes to Arial and stays that way. If we then convert to curves, it remains looking like Arial. If we publish to PDF, it publishes as Arial.
Hope that clears things up. Let me know how you get on with those fonts.
Ok I downloaded all your fonts and all seem to work for me. The epilog variable does not display as italic in the drop down because the default settings for slant and weight default to a setting that do not show their true weight and slant.
I installed them via explorer, I selected the fonts via right click and installed.
My wife just got back from shopping and when I'm done helping her I'll take all the fonts into a PDF and publish them.
So far on my system there's nothing wrong with these fonts.
This forum is a PITA, I can't even upload a lousy 2 meg file. Here is a link, click, right click link save as. http://www.graphictechnology.com/font/
"I'm not sure what 'advanced features' you are referring to."
Corel Font Manager works as a font reserve always linked to CorelDRAW, ergo it was designed so that by default you can create files while having access inside CorelDRAW to all your font files, those installed inside Windows as well as those residing in any folder mapped inside Corel Font Manager.
I have found that these features along with font embedding significantly affect CorelDRAW in negative ways. So I turn them off and CorelDRAW works much better, opening other peoples files works better.
Whilst I appreciate you trying to help here, I feel you are somewhat missing the whole point of this thread, and that we are going round in circles here. I've tried to make it really clear what the problem is with the videos i've posted and the rest of the detail, but you seem to have come to the conclusion that I think the fonts are faulty. I don't. The fonts are working perfectly if installed and there is nothing wrong with them. I know this.
On my very first post I said that 'These are 'not installed' fonts in a location that is monitored by Font Manager." So i guess by your definition we are using the 'advanced features' of Font Manager, though i'd say we are just trying to use it as it is meant to be used.
So, to re-clarify, we want a local folder of fonts that are not installed in Windows to be available to Coreldraw. We add the folder of fonts to Font Manager and then they display in the font list within Coreldraw. However, when we try to select some of the fonts, they don't work and just jump back to Arial. I can recreate this on any PC that has the latest CorelDraw updates installed.
I hope that's clear now. Something in the last update has majorly messed up how Font Manager serves 'not installed' fonts to Coreldraw, and that is what I want to fix.
No it's you who are missing my point. It seems after my test your handling of the font files in your folder structure is not the issue. It may cause issues if more than one person places fonts in the one drive.
I get it you're trying to use CFM as designed and I admitted in one of my very first posts that CFM is a mess, always has been and always will be. THEY WON'T FIX IT. Get over it. Well, maybe next year or two but probably not or if they do fix it, it will be by accident.
I install fonts by finding the font file, be that directly through Explorer or through CFM which will lead you to the file via Explorer. I right click the font file and install in Windows. I set up my font handling as I have for over 30 years and it works more or less depending on the crap fonts available today. To many butt holes creating fonts that are crap.
In CorelDRAW, I turn off font embedding, it causes conflicts sometimes, I filter fonts to only show installed fonts, (by doing that Draw only sees fonts installed in Windows) and system fonts, I turn off using the font to show the font name in the drop down. In CFM I turn the filters to see all fonts.
With these settings the only font of yours that does not display (seems to me) properly is the variable font. Variable fonts are like the forward assist on an M16 rifle, a solution to a problem that causes more problems.
All fonts are stable, meaning that they do not revert to Arial when selected, all publish to PDF as a font correctly. The variable font always converts to a curve that may be correct I do not know. There seems to be no consensus on how an application handles variable fonts.
I handle fonts as I've posted, your fonts work as well as they can, I suspect the variable fonts is some freebie POS but I'm not sure, most likely all these fonts have a dubious heritage.
All fonts can be converted to curves in the PDF export engine. Since all your systems are experiencing this issue I suspect something was changed in the update, I also suspect that handling the fonts ascI do may resolve the issues since it's network wide.
With that said all old CorelDRAW files that have been saved with font embedding enabled may have to be resaved with a new name after font embedding has been disbled. To avoid those conflicts.
Now all of this may not resolve your issue but it's a start that has promise.
You and the rest of us uses be it Adobe, Corel users or whatever are stuck with making a choice, whine about it not working as it should or making it work and making money. With fonts I made my choice 30 years ago, I make money.