Disappearing fonts...

Suddenly, none of the apps in the CorelDRAW 10 suite are handling certain fonts properly.

They show up on the font list in each app, but do not generate a preview when hovered over. If I change the font of a block of text to one of these fonts, the text disappears and the text box shrinks to an unmanageable size which cannot be resized. If I then change the font back to a working font the text reappears at its original size.

Typing a new block of text using any one of these effected fonts, the text cursor appears where I click but doesn't move as I type.

I've used these fonts for years with CD10 without a hitch. Even opening previous projects in which I used these fonts without issues, the text blocks are gone, replaced by the tiny blank text boxes I mentioned above (but the text will reappear if I change the font to an uneffected one).

I don't think there's anything wrong with the fonts themselves, as they still work in MS Word, Illustrator, and every other non-Corel product (except WordPerfect 8). I have both CD10 service packs installed. This happens on both my WinXP and Win7 pc's.

A Google search turned up only one result that sounded very similar to my issue. Applying the service packs worked for him, but I already have them installed.

I'm at a complete loss. Does anyone have any ideas...?

  • Several thoughts:

    a) Do you have a lot of fonts installed? More than about 400 is likely to cause problems and you need to consider regular, bold, italic and bold-italic as separate fonts so that limit can be reached quite quickly.

    b) You've tried rebooting, I presume.

    c) What else has happened since you last had these fonts working? Have you installed anything new? You could perhaps try a windows system restore, to a date when you know all fonts were working correctly.

    • Any possibility you have both Truetype and PostScript versions of the fonts installed?

      • Thanks guys for taking the time to respond...

        Harry: Although I have over 400 fonts on my drive, there's never more than 100 actually installed at a time. On my XP machine I use FontNavigator (bundled with CD10) to in/uninstall fonts as I need them. I also tried eliminating all but the Windows core fonts. I only noticed this issue last June when I re-opened a project where I used one of these fonts that was created a year or so before. So my pc's have been rebooted several times since then and it's hard to say what changes I've made before noticing the issue. My Win7 machine is new and this issue started right from a fresh install on it.

        David: The fonts in question are TTF and OTF. How do I identify PostScript fonts?

        • Hi.

          I remember this issue. I was so excited to get my CorelDraw 10 and when I installed it this was one of the issues right off the bat. I was never able to use it.

          I'm not sure if the service packs fixed the issue or not but I remember that the issue existed in Draw 11 too. Draw 12 was the first to fix it completely.

          Have you tried re-installing or repairing?

          ~John

          • John: These fonts worked for years on CD10 (I've owned it since 2001). And I just recently installed CD10 + service packs on a new machine with the same results right off the bat. I've wondered if it's a setting within CD itself. In "Options > Text > Fonts" there's a dialog screen with various Font options I've played around with, but no better results.

            Also, just remembered to mention: CD has a feature that triggers a dialog box when opening a project containing fonts that are not currently installed. It asks if it should install the fonts or substitute from the currently installed set. When I clicked the "install fonts" option, it would install the needed fonts then continue opening the project. This feature no longer works either. It substitutes an available font even though the needed fonts are on my drive.

            • At the moment, I'm betting on David's suggestion. If you have T1 and TT versions of the same font, it is absolutely imperative that you do not allow them both to be installed at the same time.

              PJ said:
              How do I identify PostScript fonts?

              They show up quite easily in Font Navigator:

              T1=postscript type 1
              TT=truetype
              O=opentype.

              A postscript type1 font in windows requires at least two files, ending .PFM and .PFB.

               

              • PJ said:
                These fonts worked for years on CD10 (I've owned it since 2001). And I just recently installed CD10 + service packs on a new machine with the same results right off the bat. I've wondered if it's a setting within CD itself. In "Options > Text > Fonts" there's a dialog screen with various Font options I've played around with, but no better results.

                Hi.

                You could delete your FontNav Catalog. Then re-open Fontnav and let it rebuild a new one.

                The catalog is should be located in C:\Program Files\Corel\Graphics10\Fontnav\data_nt

                ~John

                • Sorry: I phrased my question badly about Truetype and PostScript. I had an idea that Corel 10 predates OTF.

                  Anyway, the long and the short of it is – as clarified above – you shouldn’t have the same font installed in more than one format.

                  But to judge from what you say subsequently, this is unlikely to be the problem. If you no longer have the option of automatic font installation it sounds like it’s connected with Bitstream Font Navigator, which is packaged with Corel Draw. This may be a permissions issue or User Access Control in the case of Windows 7. Are you running with Admin rights on your XP machine?

              • This thread from the Adobe forums suggests video drivers may occasionally cause such problems. Have you updated the driver recently?

                • David: Thanks for that Adobe link. My XP machine has nVidia drivers, so let me look into that and I'll get back to you. Although, my other machine—a laptop—is not using nVidia...

                  • David, updated the nVidia drivers (which were more than a year out of date). No change in the font problem though.

                    Is it something inherently different in the way Corel apps handle fonts? All 3 apps in the suite, Draw, Photo-Paint and R.A.V.E have this issue (but didn't in the past). I have an old installation of Corel PrintHouse Magic that does the same thing. However, Corel WordPerfect 8 and the bundled Corel Presentations recognize and display the fonts in question without a problem. So it seems to be just the graphics apps (although, technically, Corel Presentations is a graphics app).

                    Reading through the Adobe link David provided, I'm wondering if having Adobe products installed (other than Reader) may be the cause. I have Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Acrobat, and Flash CS3 installed (they handle the fonts without issue). Not sure how to test this...