the mysterious disappearing font

Discussion:

(too old to reply)

grammatim

2009-09-05 21:32:02 UTC

This morning, I made Burmese script tables, using the Unicode font
Myanmar3 (the first item that appears when you google "myanmar font
download"). I used Insert Symbol to put each character or sequence of
characters into its own table cell. The vowel-additions combined
properly with the base consonants and properly triggered the variant
consonant shapes. I made a pdf of the tables.

This afternoon, I opened the file and every Burmese character showed
as the same specific character from a different font (encoded only in
the Private Use Area). Selecting the characters, however, causes Arial
Unicode MS to show up in the Font dropdowns. (Arial Unicode has
nothing in the Myanmar Unicode range.) Changing the font to Myanmar3
has no effect at all. Pressing Alt-X reveals the correct Unicode code
(in the range beginning with 1000). Find/Replace is unable to find any
occurrences of Arial Unicode -- but running "Replace All," replacing
Arial Unicode with Myanmar3, reports 103 changes and no visible
change.

I tried uninstalling (deleting from the Fonts folder) the other font
whose character was showing up, but even though Word was closed,
Windows reported that the font was in use in a document. I Restarted
and was able to delete the font. The tables in the document then
showed boxes, indicating that Arial Unicode has no character in that
range (the Alt-X numbers are still correct).

Myanmar3 can no longer be seen in this document!

Full disclosure: The tables were created many years ago in FrameMaker
4 for Mac, using a PostScript Burmese font (not Unicode compliant).
The file was opened in FrameMaker 7.2 for PC, and the tables saved in
a new document as MS RTF 6.0 (so that they could be imported into
Word2007). They were inserted via Insert > Object > Text from File. (I
have used this procedure for many tables using many fonts, and have
never had such a problem before.)

After insertion, the Font Substitution window showed that the
substitute for the Burmese font was "Default," which is identified as
Arial Unicode. After the problem appeared, I changed the substitute
font to Myanmar3, with no result. (I have not yet clicked the button
to make the substitutions permanent, as other imported tables in this
document have Thai, Lao, and Khmer fonts, also substituted by Arial
Unicode as "Default," and I have not yet chosen the TrueType fonts to
replace them with, so I want Word to retain a memory of their
locations. However, if clicking that button could make Arial Unicode
go away, I'll do that.)

Klaus Linke

2009-09-09 18:59:54 UTC

Permalink

Hi grammatim,

I don't know anything about Burmese in particular...

Some tricks I learned with other exotic languages:
First, make sure the language applied to the text is "Burmese"... best done
in the paragraph style definition.

If you have support for a few exotic languages installed (Programs >
Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools > Microsoft Office language
settings), tall the font dialogs will show separate fonts for western
scripts and other scripts (Far East, complex [= bidi like Hebrew], other
[???])... Change the complex font to "Myanmar3" -- again, best in the style
definition.

If you don't have the support, and don't want to install it (... some
changes to the Normal.dot[x] are irreversible), you could try to make the
necessary changes through VBA.
With the cursor in the Burmese text, and some paragraph style for it
applied,
Selection.Style.LanguageID=wdBurmese
Selection.Style.Font.NameBi="Myanmar3"
(or maybe Selection.Style.Font.NameOther, or
Selection.Style.Font.NameFarEast? I don't have a clue about Burmese; NameBi
seems to do the trick... though I had thought that was for right-to-left
scripts only)

If you don't get it to work, try the
microsoft.public.word.international.features group... that's where the gurus
hang out!

:-) Klaus

Post by grammatim
This morning, I made Burmese script tables, using the Unicode font
Myanmar3 (the first item that appears when you google "myanmar font
download"). I used Insert Symbol to put each character or sequence of
characters into its own table cell. The vowel-additions combined
properly with the base consonants and properly triggered the variant
consonant shapes. I made a pdf of the tables.
This afternoon, I opened the file and every Burmese character showed
as the same specific character from a different font (encoded only in
the Private Use Area). Selecting the characters, however, causes Arial
Unicode MS to show up in the Font dropdowns. (Arial Unicode has
nothing in the Myanmar Unicode range.) Changing the font to Myanmar3
has no effect at all. Pressing Alt-X reveals the correct Unicode code
(in the range beginning with 1000). Find/Replace is unable to find any
occurrences of Arial Unicode -- but running "Replace All," replacing
Arial Unicode with Myanmar3, reports 103 changes and no visible
change.
I tried uninstalling (deleting from the Fonts folder) the other font
whose character was showing up, but even though Word was closed,
Windows reported that the font was in use in a document. I Restarted
and was able to delete the font. The tables in the document then
showed boxes, indicating that Arial Unicode has no character in that
range (the Alt-X numbers are still correct).
Myanmar3 can no longer be seen in this document!
Full disclosure: The tables were created many years ago in FrameMaker
4 for Mac, using a PostScript Burmese font (not Unicode compliant).
The file was opened in FrameMaker 7.2 for PC, and the tables saved in
a new document as MS RTF 6.0 (so that they could be imported into
Word2007). They were inserted via Insert > Object > Text from File. (I
have used this procedure for many tables using many fonts, and have
never had such a problem before.)
After insertion, the Font Substitution window showed that the
substitute for the Burmese font was "Default," which is identified as
Arial Unicode. After the problem appeared, I changed the substitute
font to Myanmar3, with no result. (I have not yet clicked the button
to make the substitutions permanent, as other imported tables in this
document have Thai, Lao, and Khmer fonts, also substituted by Arial
Unicode as "Default," and I have not yet chosen the TrueType fonts to
replace them with, so I want Word to retain a memory of their
locations. However, if clicking that button could make Arial Unicode
go away, I'll do that.)

Peter T. Daniels

2009-09-09 21:56:50 UTC

Permalink

The problem seems to have been solved in a different way. There were a
number of other exotic fonts (Southeast Asian) in the file that needed
to be replaced with Unicode fonts, and only after I'd done that did I
feel comfortable clicking "Convert Permanently" under Font
Substitition. But meanwhile, I'd found a more attractive Burmese font
(through one of the font guide sites, rather than through google), and
replaced Myanmar3 with it, and one or both of these operations -- the
different font, or converting permanently -- seems to have done the
trick.

Post by Klaus Linke
Hi grammatim,
I don't know anything about Burmese in particular...
First, make sure the language applied to the text is "Burmese"... best done
in the paragraph style definition.
If you have support for a few exotic languages installed (Programs >
Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools > Microsoft Office language
settings), tall the font dialogs will show separate fonts for western
scripts and other scripts (Far East, complex [= bidi like Hebrew], other
[???])... Change the complex font to "Myanmar3" -- again, best in the style
definition.
If you don't have the support, and don't want to install it (... some
changes to the Normal.dot[x] are irreversible), you could try to make the
necessary changes through VBA.
With the cursor in the Burmese text, and some paragraph style for it
applied,
Selection.Style.LanguageID=wdBurmese
Selection.Style.Font.NameBi="Myanmar3"
(or maybe Selection.Style.Font.NameOther, or
Selection.Style.Font.NameFarEast? I don't have a clue about Burmese; NameBi
seems to do the trick... though I had thought that was for right-to-left
scripts only)
If you don't get it to work, try the
microsoft.public.word.international.features group... that's where the gurus
hang out!
:-) Klaus

Klaus Linke

2009-09-09 23:04:57 UTC

Permalink

Hi Peter,

Good that sometimes things just work!

Even if nobody knows why <g>

Some guru at word.international.features once talked about OpenType layout
tables that some fonts have and others not. Maybe that was the problem with
Myanmar3. But that's just a feeble guess.

Regards,
Klaus

"Peter T. Daniels" <***@verizon.net> wrote:
The problem seems to have been solved in a different way. There were a
number of other exotic fonts (Southeast Asian) in the file that needed
to be replaced with Unicode fonts, and only after I'd done that did I
feel comfortable clicking "Convert Permanently" under Font
Substitition. But meanwhile, I'd found a more attractive Burmese font
(through one of the font guide sites, rather than through google), and
replaced Myanmar3 with it, and one or both of these operations -- the
different font, or converting permanently -- seems to have done the
trick.

Post by Klaus Linke
Hi grammatim,
I don't know anything about Burmese in particular...
First, make sure the language applied to the text is "Burmese"... best done
in the paragraph style definition.
If you have support for a few exotic languages installed (Programs >
Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools > Microsoft Office language
settings), tall the font dialogs will show separate fonts for western
scripts and other scripts (Far East, complex [= bidi like Hebrew], other
[???])... Change the complex font to "Myanmar3" -- again, best in the style
definition.
If you don't have the support, and don't want to install it (... some
changes to the Normal.dot[x] are irreversible), you could try to make the
necessary changes through VBA.
With the cursor in the Burmese text, and some paragraph style for it
applied,
Selection.Style.LanguageID=wdBurmese
Selection.Style.Font.NameBi="Myanmar3"
(or maybe Selection.Style.Font.NameOther, or
Selection.Style.Font.NameFarEast? I don't have a clue about Burmese;
NameBi
seems to do the trick... though I had thought that was for right-to-left
scripts only)
If you don't get it to work, try the
microsoft.public.word.international.features group... that's where the gurus
hang out!
:-) Klaus

Peter T. Daniels

2009-09-10 11:33:51 UTC

Permalink

Possibly, but Burmese doesn't have changing contextual forms. It does
have vowel matras that are typed after the consonant letters but
appear above or to the left. Myanmar3 was apparently made ca. 1997 so
maybe isn't sophisticated enough for the current state of Unicode.

I think Font Substitution is a little bit flaky.

Post by Klaus Linke
Hi Peter,
Good that sometimes things just work!
Even if nobody knows why <g>
Some guru at word.international.features once talked about OpenType layout
tables that some fonts have and others not. Maybe that was the problem with
Myanmar3. But that's just a feeble guess.
Regards,
Klaus
The problem seems to have been solved in a different way. There were a
number of other exotic fonts (Southeast Asian) in the file that needed
to be replaced with Unicode fonts, and only after I'd done that did I
feel comfortable clicking "Convert Permanently" under Font
Substitition. But meanwhile, I'd found a more attractive Burmese font
(through one of the font guide sites, rather than through google), and
replaced Myanmar3 with it, and one or both of these operations -- the
different font, or converting permanently -- seems to have done the
trick.

Post by Klaus Linke
Hi grammatim,
I don't know anything about Burmese in particular...
First, make sure the language applied to the text is "Burmese"... best done
in the paragraph style definition.
If you have support for a few exotic languages installed (Programs >
Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools > Microsoft Office language
settings), tall the font dialogs will show separate fonts for western
scripts and other scripts (Far East, complex [= bidi like Hebrew], other
[???])... Change the complex font to "Myanmar3" -- again, best in the style
definition.
If you don't have the support, and don't want to install it (... some
changes to the Normal.dot[x] are irreversible), you could try to make the
necessary changes through VBA.
With the cursor in the Burmese text, and some paragraph style for it
applied,
Selection.Style.LanguageID=wdBurmese
Selection.Style.Font.NameBi="Myanmar3"
(or maybe Selection.Style.Font.NameOther, or
Selection.Style.Font.NameFarEast? I don't have a clue about Burmese;
NameBi
seems to do the trick... though I had thought that was for right-to-left
scripts only)
If you don't get it to work, try the
microsoft.public.word.international.features group... that's where the gurus
hang out!
:-) Klaus

Klaus Linke

2009-09-10 18:59:15 UTC

Permalink

Myanmar3 was apparently made ca. 1997 so maybe isn't
sophisticated enough for the current state of Unicode.

MS Office's fonts are a bit dated a bit now, too. Hopefully, the next Office
will have some fonts that include all the Unicode version 5 (or at leat 4)
glyphs.

I think Font Substitution is a little bit flaky.

Yes, I try to avoid it. There's no discernible logic about what fonts will
be used. Even a worse PITA is the way Word will apply seemingly random fonts
as manual font formatting if glyphs are missing in the currently used font.

Sometimes I start with a doc (style set) that has all the fonts (.NameAscii,
.NameBi, .NameFarEast, .NameOther) set to Arial Unicode MS, so that no font
substitution and font switches for glyphs will happen at all, and then only
later after I've assigned proper languages... change to other more limited
fonts.

But for that approach, you need a font that covers all the bases, and Arial
MS Unicode doesn't currently have, say, the Burmese script support.

Klaus

Peter T. Daniels

2009-09-10 19:47:43 UTC

Permalink

It could also be a matter of demand -- I have MS fonts with quite a
few ranges that are in 5 but not 4, but without lots that very few
people are interested in. (The most surprising omission is Braille
characters -- and the only Unicode Braille font I've been able to find
doesn't have the "shadow dots" that mark the non-dot portions of the 6-
point grids, which makes it less than optimal for an exposition of how
Braille works.)

Post by Klaus Linke

Myanmar3 was apparently made ca. 1997 so maybe isn't
sophisticated enough for the current state of Unicode.

MS Office's fonts are a bit dated a bit now, too. Hopefully, the next Office
will have some fonts that include all the Unicode version 5 (or at leat 4)
glyphs.

I think Font Substitution is a little bit flaky.

It seems to be either Arial Unicode or Tahoma. I did discover that if
there was a stray absent font in the area I'm replacing (e.g. when
replacing a letter plus accent, two glyphs in a PostScript font, with
a composite character in TNR), Word makes it Arial. Worse is that
sometimes it makes it SimSun for no discernible reason.

Post by Klaus Linke
Sometimes I start with a doc (style set) that has all the fonts (.NameAscii,
.NameBi, .NameFarEast, .NameOther) set to Arial Unicode MS, so that no font
substitution and font switches for glyphs will happen at all, and then only
later after I've assigned proper languages... change to other more limited
fonts.
But for that approach, you need a font that covers all the bases, and Arial
MS Unicode doesn't currently have, say, the Burmese script support.

But for what it does have, I'm always pleasantly surprised by the
appearance of the font. Its Arabic is among the best available.
(Tahoma Arabic is horrible.)