Missing font in FM although it shows fine in Word?

[Combs, Richard]

Rene Stephenson wrote: 
 
> In our current templates, we have a character tag called 
> EmphasisBold that specifies everything "As Is" except 
> Angle==Italic and Weight==Bold. This seems like a logical way 
> to have a flexible character tag. However, the paragraph 
> formats that are used in the body of the documents (all but 
> the various Heading level tags) all use Minion Web as the 
> font family, and this seems to be creating a problem. If we 
> use Word, type some text using Minion Web font family and 
> apply bold+italic, it's not a problem. It displays (and 
> prints) exactly as one might anticipate a bold italic version 
> of Minion Web font to look. The problem is, when the 
> EmphasisBold (bold+italic) char tag is applied to any text in 
> an FM file that uses the Minion Web font family, FM generates 
> the "unavailable font" error and displays it instead as 
> italic Minion Web in regular weight (sans bold).

Word simulates the bold italic (by overlaying a slightly offset second
copy of the italic glyphs). Some people find the results tolerable,
others become slightly nauseated. OK, maybe I exaggerate... In any case,
FM is far too prim and proper for such ugly fakery. ;-)  

> I'm guessing it's something about the differences in virtual 
> handling of fonts between MS and Adobe, but I have no idea 
> what the solution would be. I did research the Minion Web 
> font at Adobe, and it looks to me like there's not a bold 
> italic version in that font, which I found surprising. So, 
> can someone please explain to me what's going on and suggest 
> some options for a solution? I wouldn't know where to begin 
> to find a similar-looking font to Minion to use as a sub for 
> that char tag...if there such a place/function even exists. 
> (Obviously, I'm no typesetter...)

The Minion Pro family has both bold and semibold italic faces. Minion
Web is based on that, just optimized for on-line use -- thicker serifs
and some line weights. A boldface would benefit less from such
optimization (which may explain why it's not included), so you should be
able to use one of the Minion Pro faces just fine. You may even be able
to map it in maker.ini (if you're on Windows) so that your existing char
format works. 

HTH!
Richard


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Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
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