ACTIVATING FONTS

[Dov Isaacs]

Michael,

Contrary to what you may believe, FrameMaker has no "autoactivation"
option it it. Like other Windows applications, when a font is added to
the system, via Windows' standard "Add Fonts" control panel option or
via ATM (or for that matter any font manager that properly interfaces
with Windows), Windows' underlying font system sends a message to all
open applications advising of a change in the font system. An application
may then choose to query the system for all available fonts (font enumeration).

If adding a font via Extensis Suitcase does not properly get notification
to applications about the change in the available fonts, it is likely an
issue with Suitcase.

By the way, you are misusing the term "autoactivation." The term
"autoactivation" would refer to the scenario whereby your document (in this
case, a FrameMaker document) refers to a font that isn't currently installed
on your system. "Autoactivation" would cause the font manager to look for
the desired font in its own private collection of available, but not installed
fonts, and if such a font was available, automatically and immediately install
that font on the system and advise the application of its availability.

For better or worse, such an "autoactivation" capability normally requires
"cooperation" (i.e., a programming interface) with the application programs
that could make use of same. Neither FrameMaker nor ATM support any
"autoactivation" mechanism.

        - Dov

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Zaichenko
> Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2008 11:20 AM
>
> Hello Framers,
> Been using ATM for years. FrameMaker has this autoactivation option in it which is only compatible
> with ATM. I.e. when you install a font - it gets picked up by FrameMaker instantly. I'm trying
> Extensis Suitcase now and noticed that unless I restart FrameMaker - the fonts wouldn't show up and no
> messages would pop up that the new fonts are installed. ATM is all good when one is using a stable set
> of fonts. But what if I'm having about 20 differently mapped fonts and depending on a language I would
> just install the fonts for that language. Fonts are with the same names. In this wise I don't have to
> make changes in the template documents. ATM only allows 1 version of a font (plus adds a confusion if
> you install true type and type1 version of the same font). I'm trying to swap over to Suitcase but
> then there is this bug with not activating fonts immediately (besides that it can't export/import
> set).
>
> Does anyone know how to go about it?
>
> Michael