Since installing Dorico 6, when I load my Dorico 5 files, it insists that certain text fonts I use in the files aren’t installed and asks me what to substitute it with. I hit “OK” without suggesting substitutions and it loads fine along with the correct fonts. (Of course because they were never uninstalled!)
What changed in Dorico 6 that for some reason it’s now freaking out about fonts? I hit ok and the file loads fine, but it’s becoming a PITA because even after the files are converted to Dorico 6 and resaved, it continues to do this with the files. This extra step is annoying because these fonts are part of my template so every single file moving forward with Dorico 6 is doing this.
Again, the fonts were never uninstalled. And if I rightfully ignore dorico’s warning, the files load fine.
Windows lets you create Bold and Italic styles that you don’t actually have font files for. This causes problems when creating PDFs, and when moving documents to iPad/Mac.
So now, if you created a Bold or Italic style for a font that doesn’t exist, Dorico says “No, you can’t have that.” And it changes the style to something that you do have. Then you click OK on the dialog, and it’s done.
Great. So how do I fix what broke in Dorico 6 so that it behaves like Dorico 5 and just works. I really don’t want to have keep clicking “OK” on this extra step for every single file I make now.
You will need to click OK for every file you open that was last saved in D5 – and then once you save that file in D6, you won’t see the dialog again for that file.
I’m not sure, but it’s possible that if you have some of these “fake” fonts saved as user defaults, you’ll see the dialog for every new file as well. In this case, the best solution is to look at what the dialog is telling you and change your saved defaults.
That’s the problem. I am clicking save after editing the file and it keeps on insisting it when I reopen the same file again. So resaving in D6 isn’t fixing it. It will repeat the dialog box when I open the file again.
If you click OK without specifying replacements, then you will see the dialog every time you open that file, because those fonts are still missing.
The list is large, but it probably has lots of repeat entries – the same fonts used in different places. If you pick a replacement for a font once, the dialog will pick the same replacement for other occurrences of that font.
Looking at the list, most likely The Slug and Lion really only has a regular style, not bold or italic. Arial Black used to show up as its own font under D5, but now it’s the black style of the Arial font. (And it doesn’t have a bold style.)
I have to check the fonts but if I made the template in D5, clearly I had them because D5 didn’t have an issue. Also, when I click OK, the document loads fine. Even though D6 claims it will “substitute the missing fonts” it’s not - it’s using the correct fonts that it is claiming is missing. My files look fine when they load.
Every style of a font needs its own file. In D5 (and lots of other Windows apps), Windows would let you choose a style like bold or italic even though the file doesn’t exist – and would then “fake” the style by displaying the font thicker or at an angle. D6 now (correctly) requires the actual font file.
It will substitute fonts if you specify replacements. If you just click OK without replacements then D6 does the best it can. And I bet that if you look at an object that uses one of those missing bold or italic styles, it will look different in D6 than it does in D5.
I’ve checked PDFs of the same file from Dorico 5 and Dorico 6. I’d love to know what Dorico 6 is substituting because the bold and italic variations of the font are identical to Dorico 5.
In other words if I ignore Dorico 6, it works fine and the so-called fonts are there in my document as they appear in Dorico 5. There is no difference. I get my italic and bold variations, even though they’re “fake” according to Dorico 6.
So the warning is really just cosmetic and isn’t affecting the actual font functionality. It’d be great if they could patch this so we could have the warning disabled.
I actually have to run out and play a gig so I can’t experiment with this or reply until tonight so don’t mistake my absence for abandoning this topic! Thanks!
I’d strongly advise going through all the Font Styles and Paragraph Styles in your templates and making sure that everything is up-to-date and actually a font style that actually exists.
I just gave this a try – created a D5 document with Finale Broadway Text italic and then opened it in D6. D6 actually does continue to fake the display of this style if I click past the dialog.
However, if I then go into Paragraph Styles and select the style I made with a fake font, Dorico of course changes it to a different extant style, and the style name gets a star to show that it’s been changed. Now I hit OK, and items with that style display with the changed style.
So I guess you can just click past the dialog and proceed – but if you ever make any changes to one of these styles in a project, like wanting the font to be larger, Dorico will change the font to an existing style.
On the whole, then, the dialog gives you a chance to be warned about things and get in front of fixing them. And once you indicate a replacement in the dialog, it will remember it for future projects, which will save time. Clicking past the dialog is likely just postponing issues.
Not using it for lyrics as I never have lyrics on my charts but I am using it for the title and for the measure numbers. Arial black italic is used for the time signature and the measure numbers and so I’m loathe to change it.
Honestly I’m new to Dorico, having started with 5. Is breaking compatibility with previous versions something that’s common with Dorico updates? I really thought Dorico was supposed to be more robust but possibly I’m mistaken?
I’d like to assume that @dspreadbury didn’t mean to break backward compatibility with previous versions and that this will be patched soon to fix the behavior as he probably didn’t foresee this all happening. At the moment as I don’t have a choice I’m going to ignore the dialog warning and continue on. It’s immensely annoying for Dorico to let me go through all the work of designing a template only to then tell me when the program updates that my template is no longer good and I can’t imagine that this is what they intended the default behavior of an update to be.
